Garden
Spring Planter
I love carving images onto my little stone planters, and when they are finished I just want to keep them all, and plant them up – I cannot help bringing home little bunches of spring growth and flowers at the moment, and the pots look lovely filled with them. This pot has a hare […]
Glorious Garden Images
I’ve picked out a couple of photographs that appeal from the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition run by Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. There are so many beautiful images, it is hard to choose. International Garden Photographer of the Year is the world’s premier competition and exhibition specialising in garden, plant, flower and […]
Sketching in my Greenhouse
Ideas for sculpture are always in mind, shapes being formed and worked out. Often ideas come too fast, or are only part visualised and I have an urgent need to jot them down on paper. In working towards my exhibition ‘Naturally Inclined’ over the past few months, I’ve adopted the habit of shutting myself […]
A Perfect Oval Form
My eye follows the curve round to the large end fitting perfectly the hollow in my palm, arcing up again to the smaller top oval. The matt surface draws in the light and makes soft shadows. An egg shape, an egg, a perfect egg. Ah, if I could sculpt so perfectly. You can probably […]
Spring Vase
The sun shone through the windows today. The shafts of light brought the outside indoors with a feeling of a Spring. With spirits lifted, I arranged fresh flowers, simple purple tulips with their bright new green leaves. Through the long, grey, wet days we’ve been having lately, you’re probably like me, remembering the […]
Garden Birds – Long-tailed Tits
Whilst counting for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch last weekend, I tried to sketch my little visitors as I watched. A flock of Long-tailed Tits flew in to the feeder, and most of my drawings were of these charismatic little birds – I found it difficult as they all moved around so quickly! I […]
About January’s Garden
From Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’ in the The Merchant’s Tale, about January’s garden – such lovely words and I agree! He made a gardyn, walled al with stoon; So fair a gardyn woot I nowher noon. The whole section where these lines appear. This noble January, with all his might, Honourably, as does […]
Big Garden Birdwatch
This is a Dunnock, perching on the edge of my trailer. This bird became the star of my Big Garden Birdwatch last year. This afternoon I’m getting ready for the 2014 watch, filling up feeders and making sure the birdbaths are topped up with fresh water. I love this dedicated hour of watching my […]
Cabinet of Curiosities
Sometimes as I garden, little treasures pop up out of the soil, or occasionally they are washed down in the beck and stand out because of pattern, colour or shine. These are recent aquisitions, and will join my other rows of comforting curiosities. I have quite a collection now and I love to […]
Knotty Brambles
I’ve spent time this weekend clearing brambles. The area where they grow, down the side of my workshop, used to be a hedgerow, there are ash tree stumps and it is a place I tend to leave to grow naturally wild. The geese have made nests and laid eggs there in the thick […]