In my urban garden, faded has its own grandeur. Once vivid, the roses are blooming in soft pastels edged with cherry pink, some round like little peonies, others presenting their petals to the garden. The jasmine’s sharp green leaves have only now taken on tones of russet, their rolls and … Read More
I’ve been trying to draw it all week – a tiny toadstool in the improvised grow-bag that was home to the courgettes and now, with no intervention from me, hollyhocks. Studio work has come first but today, its neighbour nibbled, I’ve grabbed the last of the daylight and crouched down to … Read More
It’s nature day at COP26 so I take a look at what nature is doing in the small world of my urban garden. Fashionably late, the cosmos is in flower. I associate it with Summer but looking it up, some varieties are happy in cooler weather. Getting closer to draw, … Read More
As trees fruit, winds blow and Summer veg go over, there’s an air of gathering-in about the garden, and not just for me… The rainbow chard, spindly this year, keeps going so I harvest little sprouting tops to add to a stir-fry. And it’s only in drawing it that I … Read More
The temptation to tidy is sometimes overwhelming – but aside from sprawling limbs of ivy and roses to dead-head, this is the season when I let things lie for a bit. This week, the garden has rewarded me with a hidden harvest…. hiding among leaves that looked done-for, I’ve found gorgeous … Read More
Chilly in the garden, spotting rosehips I gather some in and go foraging for more warm Autumn colours for kitchen drawing. The rosehips, red from a distance, have a subtle blend of reds, brick and brown, layers of colour needed, especially on this waste paper, coated for print. At first … Read More
It’s October – but just as I expect to be drawing all things Autumnal, the garden gives me fresh flowers. The ivy is alive with bees and wasps. Interested mostly in the top flowers, they let me snip off a sprig to draw, its yellows needing the glow of a … Read More
It’s been a blustery, rainy start here to Autumn – a time for nipping out and gathering in for drawing in the kitchen. A stem blown down by a squally shower, the red amaranth looks like a flower designed by an upholsterer. The flower head grows tufts and twirls, tiny seeds … Read More
I’m a messy gardener, partly because I like to see what plants do. At this time of year, my reward is spectacular structures whose job is to offer seed, broadcast in the breeze or neatly packaged for creatures to take. The poppies stand mediaeval, all rust and twirl, windows long … Read More
Holly and Ivy in September… that seems wrong in a “Surely we’re not talking about Christmas yet?” sort of way – but this week’s dispatch is all about the wildlife. Just as the garden has that look that an old college friend describes as “having had one party too many”, it … Read More