Meeko and the Morning Glories

Meeko and the morning glories. Ha! I think that would be a good name for a band!

These morning glories reseeded themselves from last year. As they've grown, I've guided them towards the little fence that backs the flower bed. They've twirled and curled around the wire and look so pretty.

I didn't grow morning glories for a couple of years when Meeko was a pup. In those days, he couldn't pass a plant without trying to take a bite and morning glories can make dogs sick. Now he ignores most plants except for grass so I'm able to grow morning glories in my garden again.

The blue-purple of these flowers is one of my favourite colours. I love any warm blue tone. The morning glories have created the perfect backdrop to the light blue salvia. I love when the garden leads the way.

There is something very special about morning glory blooms. I think they look like little lanterns, almost as if the light was coming from within them. So very beautiful!

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Tulip Time

This spring, I've had one of the prettiest tulip displays ever in my garden. The mild autumn we enjoyed here in the Montreal region meant that I had more time than usual to plant spring bulbs. I bought a lot of bulbs on sale in November and planted them. In December, the earth was still workable so I bought more! Lots of bulbs planted means lots of spring flowers!

In the photo above, you can see the early stages of the tulips in my back flowerbed. The elegant pink-striped ones in the back are 'Ballade'. They have been there for several years and I love them. The multi-coloured mix in front was planted this fall. On Instagram, I mistakenly said the mix was called 'Monet's Garden'. This colourful mix is actually called...wait for it..."Long-Stemmed 2 Months of Flowering Tulips Mixture".  It's certainly not a very poetic name but it is a very diverse and pretty combination of tulips. With the very warm days we have been having recently, a two-month display seems overly optimistic but I am enjoying every single day of them.

This particular flowerbed is visible from our kitchen window and back door so I have been making frequent trips there to gaze out at the tulips. In the more recent photos below, you can see how the stems are taller now and the blossoms more full.

Can you tell that I'm in love with them? 

Sometimes nature give you something a little extra. In the middle of all of these tulips was a very special one. A renegade. Isn't it amazing?

At the side of the house, I planted yellow-pink and purple-toned tulips together and they look like they were made to be friends. The pinks ones are a bunch-flowering tulip called "Quebec". The purple-edged ones are a Triumph variety called "Affaire". Both types have multiple stems so it makes for a very full display. I can see these ones from our dining room window. If it sounds like I spend a lot of time looking out of windows at my garden, I do.

I don't know what the funny-looking tulip below is called. (In case you are worried, he is not in a cage. I have these wire fences throughout my garden. I call them 'Meeko fences'. They are meant to slow down the galloping of a certain boy through my beautiful flowers. In this case, I had pulled one of the fences back in order to photograph the tulips. When I looked up, 'guess who' was sitting behind it grinning at me.)

One of the ongoing disappointments I have about many tulip bulbs is how they disappear over time. The silver lining is that it means that I can adjust and renew the look of my flowerbeds by adding more bulbs each fall. Every spring brings new surprises. I have many other tulips planted here and there in the garden but wanted to introduce my 'newcomers' to you.

Here's the "Monet's Garden" mix of tulips planted in front. I have to admit that I bought them mainly because of their name but I am very happy with their refined and elegant appearance.

If you'd like to see the watercolour images that include tulips in my shop, you can see them here.

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You may have noticed that I've made some small adjustments to the design of my blog. It's a little wider than before and my photos are also bigger. I hope that you like these small changes. I thought of changing my blog header but I still like it. It's been the same since 2011 but it feels like me. It's one of my favourite watercolour paintings that I did many years ago. The original hangs in our living room.

Today, I also managed to solve a problem I've had on Blogger since I began it in 2011! My photos would automatically indent from the left so I had to manually remove a piece of code after adding each and every photo! It was especially annoying when I had posts with several photos. I found some code that automatically corrects the problem! Hurray! It gets added in the CSS portion of the blog template. I also found some code that resizes my photos to fit my blog columns, also added to the CSS. Two internal changes that make posting a little easier! I'm sharing in case anyone else is struggling to solve similar problems.

Happy Thanksgiving and a Sale

I want to wish a 'Happy Thanksgiving' to all of my friends and customers who are celebrating today in the United States. I hope you have a lovely day with family and friends.

I hand-lettered this message this morning in watercolour and then surrounded it with some of the nature finds I have in my studio. I wrote the words in pencil, fleshed out the letters and then filled them with watercolour.

In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving in the month of October! It's always on the second Monday in October. I've always been a little jealous of the American tradition as I feel you have a more formal beginning to the holiday season. In Canada, there's a very long gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I never feel quite ready. Meeko's ready for the holidays though. He told me so.

I've been busy this month although I haven't been posting here on my blog very often. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you will have seen that I've been working on a new series of flower paintings. I will be working at creating prints of them in the next few days. If I have time, I am also hoping to include them in a special project.  I'll let you know.

I also wanted to mention that I am having a holiday sale in my art shop. You can get 20% off, now through Monday, November 30th. Just use the coupon code SHOP2015 at checkout.

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November Musings

I've introduced a lot of new work to my shop recently. During the past week, I introduced a new collection of pansy prints. They are available individually and as a set. I have a real soft spot for pansies. Aside from being beautiful flowers, they are associated with many childhood memories. I used to pick pansies in my grandparents' garden. An extra layer to those memories and associations is the fact that my grandmother's name was Viola.

This past week, I also had something to celebrate. I passed 2,000 followers on Instagram! I appreciate the people who follow me there so much. Instagram is definitely one of my 'happy places'. It's a great place to feel encouragement and inspiration. A real hub of creativity.

Because I have been working on the computer so much the past couple of weeks to convert paintings into new prints, I find my afternoon walks with Meeko extra restorative. On Friday afternoon, I decided to walk a little farther than usual on a road we don't usually take. The road is bordered by corn fields. It was so beautiful.

That was the day that I learned that Meeko is the colour of a corn field in autumn. Now you know too.

While I do love autumn, November is not my favourite month. I miss the flowers in my garden. I find the lack of daylight hard. It makes taking product photos more complicated. I don't like that it's already dark when Chloé gets home from school. I start to feel the pressure of the impending holidays. I have lots of things to keep me busy in the weeks ahead which is good. Colder days will mean that I can start to walk regularly in the little forest with Meeko again. We've already been a couple of times.

With plentiful studio time and Meeko time, I'll get through November just fine.

A Rainy Day is a Studio Day

It rained all night and it is supposed to rain all day. It's good for the garden. I love the scent and find the sound comforting. It also means I have no excuse not to spend the day in my studio. I started cleaning it yesterday and need to continue my work. I am so tempted just to clear a spot in the middle of the mess and start a new painting but I know a cleaner, safer (yes, it got that bad) workspace would be the best thing.

I took these photos from the shelter of the back door this morning. I love how you can see the rain in the photos! Do you see the diagonal streaks?

The last painting I did was a commission. The customer requested two flowers of significance to her family but left the approach and composition entirely up to me. I couldn't ask for a more pleasant experience. Still, I am looking forward to doing a painting of my own choice. Plus, I have several watercolors from past months that are almost finished and are still waiting for final touches. I also have frames for some of my original watercolours that I need to assemble. I have new prints to create. Oh boy. So much to do. But first a clean studio.

I opened the screen door for Meeko to go out this morning and he immediately sat down. For the moment, he'd rather look at the rain than be in it. Maybe he'll join me in my studio later for moral support.

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain." 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Meeko Time

Every now and then, Meeko leans over and whispers 'If you're looking for a blog subject, I'm sure people wouldn't mind one all about me'.

It's hot and humid here. Even without the heat, in the summer my art productivity always slows down. My concentration is always off when others are in the house, even though I enjoy my daughters' school vacation presence. Snatching an hour to paint here and there doesn't always work. I'm better off with a stretch of a few hours of uninterrupted studio time--time to think, time to putter, time to produce. Plus I have a very big garden that requires my regular presence during the summer. This past week, I've been getting up early each morning to go out and work in the garden for two to three hours before the day's heat hits. If I don't look after it daily, it becomes an unworkable jungle.

The rest of my summer days seem to be a bit of a blur--dentist appointments (Chloé got her wisdom teeth removed this past week; Emma's appointment is in August), various errands, visits to framing suppliers, preparations for a garage sale, the beginning of a painting commission, mom's 'taxi', walks with Meeko.

Wait a minute. Meeko. Once again, I think the furry boy might be right.

A serviceberry from our garden. Meeko loves berries.

Gentle boy.

A rare off-leash summer run. Yippee!

"I stand on guard for thee." I think it's more to do with dogs, cats and squirrels in the park. 

Gardening companion whether at work or at rest.

A blog post brought to you by Meeko.

A Spring Adventure

This morning when we woke up, I'm certain there was a collective groan. If the windows had been open, I'm sure it would have resonated for miles. After an unseasonably warm day yesterday when much of the snow melted and people flocked into the streets wearing light clothing and big smiles, it snowed again overnight. A lot of snow. After the initial shock of seeing everything covered in white again, I decided to make the best of it and see if the forest path was still accessible. I had my doubts after all of the thawing that had taken place in previous days.

There is a creek that we have to cross over to get to the path. A plank of wood serves as a bridge but it was under a half-foot of water and a layer of ice this morning. It wasn't even visible. I had to get a piece of wood to poke through the surface to be sure that it was still in place.

This is when I told Meeko my plan that we were going to walk across the submerged bridge. First he looked at me and then he started barking. Rough translation: 'You want me to do what? You are crazy'. (He fell into the creek a couple of springs ago when he sidestepped the bridge.) After some initial hesitation and more barking, he got brave and went across first.

This is taken from the other side. What was waiting for us was surreally beautiful. The thaw from previous days had created the swampy patches that are typical of this little forest during the spring and summer but everything, absolutely everything, was covered in snow. It was like a frozen moment between seasons.

I let Meeko be the leader as finding the pathway was not always obvious because there were parts underneath the water. He had a ton of fun running ahead and then racing back to check on my progress. We had the forest to ourselves because no one else was nutty enough to be there this morning. But oh what they missed!

I don't wear my glasses when I'm out walking. Somehow I hit a setting on my phone without realizing and the last few photos are in black and white. Still beautiful.

This is Meeko getting mentally ready to cross the watery bridge again to go home. I'm so glad that I decided to shake off my initial disappointment at seeing the snowy weather. I have Meeko to thank over and over again for getting me out into nature on a daily basis. We had a ton of fun together this morning.

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And Then It Snowed and Snowed

This morning we woke to a blanket of snow and it kept snowing. In fact, it still is. The first snowstorm of the year.

Despite the weather, well actually because of it, Meeko and I went for a walk in the forest in the early afternoon. We had the whole place to ourselves.

The scenery in the forest was absolutely enchanting. Snow covered every single tree trunk and branch. 

When Meeko runs in the snow, I have this song in my head. 

Look at the snowballs that accumulated on Meeko's legs. It was wet, sticky snow.

We are thawing inside now. It took over a half hour for the snow to melt that had accumulated on Meeko's legs but I think he would agree that it was worth it. We had so much fun!

Today, I was thinking of Emma's friends in her McGill University residence who will be experiencing their first snowstorm. I hope they are able to take a break from studying for their exams to build a snowman together! 

The winds have picked up and it is quite blustery at the moment. I'll be glad once Chloé's schoolbus arrives at the corner.

The beauty and challenges of snow.

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