There’s a point in the year when everything bursts into leaf. Trees sparkle. Winter-dull shrubs are tipped with perky green.
The hydrangea, pruned of its dried flowers last week, is all furl and curl. Pairs of leaves hinge out from stalks speckled with the pink of its Summer plumage.
The lonicera, already throwing out new shoots at the start of the month, suddenly has little bells of pale yellow-green flower.
The forsythia, one-tone yellow at the very start of Spring, presents bunches of leaves upwards as its flowers point down.
The leaves, all green but what greens! Grass green, juniper green, lemon yellow, orange, persimmon and violet liquid colour and a dollop of Payne's Gray from a tube, all brought into service.
And with all that’s new come the creatures – glossy black bees about, copper hoverflies I’ve never seen before, a tiny spider balancing delicately on a leaf tip, greenfly crowding around the roses…
Welcome back, Spring.
Ballpen, natural ink, watercolour, fineliner and highlighter on waste paper.
Rose sketches from this project are now available as greeting cards, from the Garden Museum shop in London, at Hackney Wick Underground and on my Etsy shop.
On my Teemill shop: my rose collection of t-shirts and tote bags.