30 Day Challenge

Meanwhile..... I'm working on several projects. Besides the Arum (which still isn't finished) I've also decided to take up the 30 day challenge again. For those of you who are not on Facebook and are not a member of the best group on it (Botanical Artists), the 30 Day Challenge is somewhat of a tradition now. Every year in September the members of this group are invited to join the challenge to paint or draw a botanical subject for 30 days. So every day one finished thingy.
Now because I had to work very hard on yet another project I missed a few days already. Going to catch up in the next few days though. For now I've done 5. Here they are.

Rosa rugosa hip

Rosa glauca hips

Rosa moyesii hip

Clematis x jouiniana 'Praecox'

Amanita muscaria

More of the challenge soon. And for everyone who is not yet a member of the Facebook group (WHY NOT????) here's the link: Botanical Artists. Just request membership. ;)

Painting in Eenrum

Last weekend I was invited to demonstrate botanical art and sell my paintings, prints and cards at "my" nursery De Kleine Plantage in Eenrum. For some years now they are selling my cards in their shop and every year I'm invited for the Liefhebbersdagen. It's in the second weekend of September and many other nurseries, bulb sellers, specialised shops, bookstores, etc. are invited to show and sell their goods at De Kleine Plantage. It's always quite a big event garden and plant lovers in the Northern part of The Netherlands. I took some photos again this year. It's so nice to look at the plants that are flowering now, finding new introductions of plants and of course to meet up with friends who share the same passion.
Down below you'll find the tiny painting I made last weekend. It's Clematis 'Jan Fopma'.

The beautiful border of pots and containers at the entrance of the nursery:

The plants for sale, ordered by colour. It's nice to see plants of the same colour all together, easy to combine and it looks wonderful too.

This is at the greenhouse where I was painting. Part of the greenhouse was made into a tearoom, the other part was for a jewellery maker, a book store selling old and antique gardening books and me. On Sunday also Gert Tabak and Ton ter Linden joined us with their cards and books.

 

 

There were quite a few bulb sellers. The biggest of all was Hein Meeuwissen. Unfortunately I didn't have time to get some bulbs myself but I will order some. The displays of all the sellers was so mouthwatering....

Some of the plants that caught my eye at the nursery....

Allium tuberosum

Aster 'Vasterival'

Clematis 'Dark Eyes'

Clematis 'Princess Kate'

Clematis viticella 'Maria Cornelia'

Echinacea 'Maui Sunshine'

Kosteletzkya virginica

Purple Kale

And here he is: Clematis 'Jan Fopma'

Dotting

I've been so busy lately with a lot of things. Most of them had nothing to do with botanical painting, drawing or gardening. A bad thing, although the other things had to be done too. Last week we had a week off. We went on holiday, away from home and all the things that still need to be done here. We went to museums, slept a lot, visited my parents in law and I celebrated my birthday. All in all another busy week. But this was fun.

I actually found some time to draw a bit again. It had been ages since I made my last pen and ink botanical and I really felt like doing one now. Another artist, Michael Murillo from the US, asked me if I would like to trade drawings. I saw a nude sketch he made and I was impressed. I really loved it. He wanted to give me that sketch and trade it for one of mine. I don't have a lot of sketches. At least I don't think they are worth a trade. So I thought this pen drawing could be nice for him if he liked it. He did. So I started dotting this amazing deep purple violet Clematis viticella 'Black Prince' from my mother's garden. It was so much fun and so relaxing to do. Yesterday I finished it and here's the result. I think I might stipple another drawing soon.

Tiny stuff

I have a ganglion in my right wrist. That's my drawing wrist. Normally a ganglion isn't very painful but in my wrist it is painful. Especially when I have been drawing for a while. So 1,5 years ago I went to my doctor to ask what it was and what he could do about it. He told me what it was and that I could get rid of it by hitting it against the wall or give it a big whack with a phonebook or a bible (in case I had a lot of faith in God's power). But he also said that it wouldn't be a guaranty that it would be gone for good.
My doctor is a very nice man with a great sense of humour. He knows that I draw botanical stuff and he likes my drawings. He therefore thought it would be wise to send me to a plastic surgeon in the hospital in Groningen.

The plastic surgeon (strange name isn't it?) had a look at it and told me it was unusual that it's hurting me so much. So, just to be sure, he told me to get an x-ray. There was nothing on the x-ray. So he told me to get a PET-scan. There was nothing on the PET-scan either. But still he didn’t want to cut the ganglion out of my wrist. He inserted a needle inside my ganglion and removed the glue like substance instead. He hoped it would stay away.
But a month later the ganglion was there again and still painful. So…. I returned to the surgeon. Now he wanted to see an MRI of my wrist.

Sighhhhh……

Ok, so two weeks ago I went to the hospital again to get that MRI. And last week I went to see my surgeon again. He told me that the real problem isn’t in the same spot where the ganglion lump is. But it is more inside my wrist. In the joint of my thumb. Now I have to get a surgery to get it all out. And for that he has to cut around some bones and tendons. He has to cut some tendons too.
The surgery will take place around Christmas time. Yippee! And after that I won’t be able to use my wrist for about 6 weeks.

BUT….. after that I will be able to draw again without pain. At last…..

And until then I only can draw some really tiny stuff. And that’s what I’ve been doing the last weeks. I can show you these two drawings.

One of Clematis seeds (although there are some people who rather think of it as sperm, and others look at it and think of tadpoles). They are the seeds of Clematis viticella “Little Nell” also blogged HERE.
The other little tiny thingy is the small drawing of a Hydrangea “flower” you can see at the start of this post. I want to do some more of those…. They are really very much fun to do.

playing

So it was my birthday yesterday and my guys gave me a beautiful camera. Its the Panasonic DMC-TZ4. It has 10x optical zoom (wow!). Today I'll be playing with my new toy of course. This morning I already made some nice photo's.
Photo above is Crocosmia 'Lucifer', below you see Hydrangea serrata 'Preziosa', Achillea millefolium 'Lachsschönheit' (already lost most of it's colour) and at the bottom Clematis 'My Angel'.

Little Nell

No bark this time. I'm having the day off. Or maybe this evening... But I'm very tired. This afternoon I have to take the children to Groningen to meet Jeroen. We'll be looking for a birthday present for me. I would like to have a small compact digital camera that I can take with me in my handbag. Now I use an enormous camera. It takes wonderful photo's but is also very heavy. I hope the children will be a little bit cooperative. Ward was very grumpy when I told him we had to go to Groningen. It makes me sad... But I guess that's also because I'm tired of all the drawing, the running around to keep an eye on Bertus, doing the laundry, the washing up and prevent the house from getting one big mess.
So, to cheer me up a bit I thought I should post a photo that makes me happy. I took this one last week. It's Clematis viticella 'Little Nell'.


This Clematis is always doing great, every year it's full of flowers. But this year it is absolutely amazing. It has never flowered this good before. My Wisteria is having some late flowers too and the colours complement each other very nicely.