And finally . . .

Before 2017 ends I'll show you my illustration for the 2017 Special Plant Issue of Gardens Illustrated magazine, this was published just before Christmas and the subject was 'avenues' and the love of arranging plants small and large in parallel rows that lets the eye into the distance. Frank Ronan writes about Mulberries and Hydrangeas, pollarded Willows and Swamp Cypresses; but the paragraph that sparked my imagination was a description of an avenue of Monkey Puzzle trees ... I love the geometry of the branches.

I studied loads of photos and reference books and made careful sketches of the Monkey Puzzle tree structure. Then I scanned and played around with the sketches in Photoshop, creating an avenue of trees. I wasn't sure where this was going, but after a break I suddenly realised it looked like a snow scene and how appropriate for late December. To emphasise the distance and the path between the trees, I added two silhouetted figures and two skipping whippets making tracks in the snow.

As with the December magazine's illustration (in the previous post) I decided to use a second colour, this time for the sky ... a bright pink, the colour of the sunset on a frosty snowy winter day.

I printed the green and pink areas separately and layered them digitally, this is something I often do with illustration work as the colours can be kept clean and bright when scanned and it allow for tweaking of the digital artwork to get it just right.

So, after almost 3 years and 36 illustrations, this is my last illustration for Frank Ronan's column in Gardens Illustrated magazine. I've handed the baton on ... maybe it's to you?

And this seems an appropriate time to draw a line under the PurplePoddedPeas blog. 

Ten years is a long time in social-media-land and life now has a different rhythm.

You can find me on Instagram and on Twitter  

. . . and also soon on my new blog which I'll publish a link to in the new year.

Wishing you a happy and peaceful 2018

Celia

xx

Gardens Illustrated illustrations 2017 ... part 2

Here is my round-up of the linocut illustrations for Frank Ronan's monthly column in Gardens Illustrated magazine for July to December 2017 (the illustrations for January to June can be found here).

Frank's June column left him returning home after a few years living in California ... 

"The joy of being back in my own garden is overwhelming at times."

During 2016 Frank's writing had taken on a gloomy tone, so I was relieved he was happy and and back among plants he loves ... and I love too.

July 2017

Frank's garden has been left to grow wild and he's unsure what to tackle first. He decides that a large fir tree ... a Christmas tree someone planted out in the 1950s ... now dwarves the cottage and has to go; his decision made because he loves pruning things, climbing trees and using a chain saw. The fir tree's trunk already has a Clematis montana growing up it, so Frank leaves a 15 ft stump as its support. Our garden wall also has a C. montana ... and as it was May it was in flower  (I work about 2 months ahead of publication), so I could enjoy sketching from life. This isn't always possible but I prefer drawing from real live plants.

August 2017

This year I often had a very small window when I could work on the 'Frank' illustrations; the August Frank arrived in late May and I sat at my desk and carefully read and re-read Frank's words on Monday 5 June ... 2 days after the London Bridge attack, the 3rd terrorist attack in a only a few weeks last summer. Frank's essay on the subject of forgiveness, contentment and happiness was poignant and perfectly timed ... I may have cried (which doesn't happen often). If you have a copy of the the magazine or can get the online version, I recommend it as something to keep at hand if times get tough.

The editor suggested I include a Goldfinch in the composition, they are frequent visitors to our garden and one of my favourite birds, so along with grasses I sketched from life this became the image to illustrate Frank's words ...

"Happiness is no right, but an elusive privilege ... If you chase it, it will run ... The stiller you are the more it will linger. Any attempt to run after it and capture it, or even too direct a stare, and it will flit off like a goldfinch startled."

September 2017

More happy coincidences for September's Frank, the subject is meadows and I'd just spent a fascinating day visiting one and doing lots of sketches. Frank had been reading a book, 'Grass-fed Nation' by Roger Harvey, the agricultural adviser for 'The Archers' ... which is often on the radio as I work ... so I'm familiar with 'herbal leys'.

Frank discovers that his neglected garden borders ... now overgrown with a thatch of grasses, wildflowers and self-seeded perennials related to meadow plants ... are thriving! He muses about a new kind of garden border that is more like a meadow. Now, that sounds lovely, just my kind of thing too, Knapweeds, Burnets and Geraniums mingled in drifts of meadow grasses ... something butterflies would enjoy too.

October 2017

Autumn flowering bulbs is the subject of the October 'Frank', all those lovely sugar-almond pink flowers that surprise the garden with their clean sharp colour among the decaying leaves of autumn.
I chose to illustrate the Nerines and Cyclamen (Frank includes Colchicums too, but I decided they would overload the illustration). I included the toad that Frank says looks like a Cyclamen corm, and the drifts of Cyclamen are based on those at Anglesey Abbey which have a special memory for me.
I like his idea of planting Nerines in pots ... so this is a visual reminder to do that too.

November 2017

Apple trees and garden bonfires ... two more things I can draw from life and from personal experience. Frank is writing about how picking fruit and having a bonfire are great ways to get friends to 'help' in the garden. This was a lovely Autumnal subject and and excuse to carve decorative patterns to depict the flames and smoke.

December 2017

The December issue of Gardens Illustrated includes a lovely new series of articles by Lia Leendertz on identifying trees, part 1 covers Deciduous Native British Trees. To continue the 'tree theme', Frank writes about Ash trees at a time when time may be running out as they succumb to Ash Die-Back. The Ash tree I sketched for this illustration is one I can see from our vegetable plot, it stands on the bank of the brook in the neighbour's garden, and has a twin trunk which joins to make an opening big enough for a child for small person to squeeze through.
I've got used to spotting obscure literary references in Frank's writing, this month he makes a passing reference to Tennyson referring to the Ash tree's 'coal black buds in March' ... it took a request on Twitter for someone to point me to 'The Gardener's Daughter', so I thought a 2017 gardener's daughter should appear in the picture ... with her cat. The door in the garden wall is based on the one in my garden ... although I've played around with the scale and made the tree huge and the wall more extensive and further away.
A few more changes from the usual ... I worked slightly larger and inked the block in various shades of brown and dark grey. The red of the gardener's daughter's coat was added digitally after scanning the print (if I print an edition, I'll cut a special block to print the red).

So that's almost another year of prints complete ... there's one more, I'll tell you about the linocut for the Special 'Plants Edition' before the New Year.

Meanwhile, wishing you a calm run-up to the Christmas weekend. 

Cheers!

Celia

xx

Gardens Illustrated illustrations 2017 round up ... part 1

Times change and these days you'll mainly find me on Instagram or Twitter rather than keeping this blog up to date. But it would be shame not to continue to record here my linocut illustrations for Frank Ronan's monthly column in Gardens Illustrated magazine . . . so here begins a round up with the illustrations for January 2017 to June 2017 . . .

January 2017

Frank writes about the pleasure on a fine winter day, of pruning a rampant Wisteria and how a small cottage can be engulfed by a particularly vigorous Wisteria.

I aimed to give this illustration the feeling of a Grimm's fairytale.

February 2017

Frank's love for one of the native Californian shrubs, Manzanita, isn't put off by it's incendiary reputation, so he experiments with fire to promote germination of its seeds. 

"I might not be so open minded about the beauty of this native were I shivering in a silver blanket in a school gymnasium"

These were Frank's portentous words written a year ago about Californian wildfires which right now are devastating Ventura county with its worst wildfire in modern Californian history. 

March 2017

The plant hunter and nurseryman Michael Wickenden died while on an expedition, this is Frank's tribute to his friend.

I've included Michael walking out into a mountainous landscape, a humble bunch of flowers ... some of the species he collected and grew in his nursery ... and a postcard of the Mountains of the Moon, the scene of one of his adventures. 

April 2017

After reading Frank's piece about using some pink coloured rubble to create terraces and paths around his Californian garden, this design popped into my head fully formed ... it illustrates Frank's fantasy that one day his garden will be full of fruit trees and bushes that he can harvest from as he meanders up and down the sloping terraces.
This was one of my favourite designs from 2017.

May 2017

Flowers often invoke a deeply buried memories and for Frank it is his love of peonies that threads through the years ... his introduction by a cousin to the seductive flower and friends who have added to his collection. I saw this as a still from a whimsical film about a long forgotten childhood meeting.

June 2017

The 'June Frank' text arrived by email and to my surprise Frank is leaving California and on his way home ... where would that be? The magazine editorial and design team were as surprise as I was. We'd have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, as Frank packed his bags and left his Californian garden where he had tried to grow native shrubs, indulged his love of agaves and battled with gophers eating his palm trees; the rains came! His garden flowered, plants he had given up on and watched desiccate, sprang into life and bloomed! I designed the image in warm red/browns but after discussion with the art ed I printed it in a fresh green.

... part 2 of this round-up will follow soon.

Celia

xx

The months rush by when you have monthly deadlines!

There's nothing like monthly deadlines to speed up time! Already on my desk, I have Frank Ronan's words for 'The writer's plot' for the February 2017 edition of Gardens Illustrated magazine. January's illustration is done and probably at the printers by now.

Then I realised I'd failed to update this blog with the past six, yes a half year's worth!, of monthly illustrations. If you read the magazine you will have seen all of these already, but I like to keep a record of them here, and for those who don't see the magazine, here we go . . . 

August's theme was Frank's neglected English garden (he now resides in California) and his joy of revisiting the damp, green and overgrown plot. Much like the outer edges of my own garden, I thought - so I sketched some bindweed, buttercup, cow parsley and wood avens from life . . .

.  .  . and added some blackbirds - I'm sure there are blackbirds enjoying Frank's plot while he is away.

Then onto September and Frank was in a gloomy mood - plants were dying in his Californian garden, expensive large and precious plants. He blamed his dog. A tricky subject to give a positive and decorative spin, so I decided to play it straight and focus on the wrongly accused dog.

Because it was gophers that were to blame. Frank is now waging war on gophers! And I'm now thinking grey squirrels aren't so bad after all.

October, and Frank is back to writing about his English garden and the pleasure of dahlias and succulents still looking good as autumn fades into winter. I sketched the dahlias which were flowering right outside my studio . . .

.  .  . combined with sketches of succulents in pots by out kitchen door, it made a cheerful design of rosette shapes printed in a rich pinky-red.

November's subject returned to Agaves, at first my heart sank as much I like them (and Frank seems to have a passion for them) I was floundering for spark of inspiration. It didn't help that I had to shoehorn this illustration into a couple of free days in a very busy August which included a few days in London. While I was visiting the Sky Garden at the top of one of the City's newest high-rise buildings (by the way, do visit if you can, it's free and it's fabulous!) I spotted plant label - "that's what I have to draw for Frank's article" I said out loud, before kneeling down on the marble steps to get a good angle for some photos.

The plant at the Sky Garden wasn't in flower but I found some photos of the swan-necked flower spikes and they reminded my of fireworks, which seemed apt for the November magazine.

December, nearly the end of the year and the Christmas edition of the magazine . . . and Frank is musing about weeping (bear with me, he has his reasons) he needed to get something off his chest, the subject of weeping forms of tree and how some people are snobby about them. It's an amusing read and as with many of Frank's articles contains some references that had me scurrying off to google to check out their exact meanings (hence the copious notes in my sketch book). 

The idea for the composition arrived in my head fully formed – a weeping Cercidiphyllum (or Katsura tree) over a pond of golden carp.

To mark the end of the year Gardens Illustrated magazine has a Special plants edition, this year for the 13th issue of 2016 Frank returned to his favourite subject . . . yes it's another agave! To be fair Frank realises that he has written about succulents in more than a few articles this year, but he has a valid excuse - a specialist succulents nursery not far from his home in California has closed down and there is a liquidation sale! Frank is extremely excited by the chance to buy huge specimens of the agaves on his wish-list. I loved Frank's description: "There was the mother plant of Agave bracteosa with all her pups still peering out from under her skirts", it reminded me of a dame's costume in a pantomine, which is rather apt for the festive season.

After scanning my sketch I worked on the design some more using Photoshop, and added birds and a lizard - after all, neglected greenhouses would be sure to have wildlife sneaking in among the plants. And to mark the passing of the old year into the new I reversed out the left side and made the background the night sky with the sun rising on the opposite side. 

I'm not sure how I fitted these into the the past few months, but I still get a spark of excitement when a new article from Frank arrives via the magazine editors to my inbox. Yes even if it's another agave! I'm beginning to love them too.

Season's Greetings!

Celia

xx

Some of my Gardens Illustrated designs from earlier in the year are now available as original limited edition hand-burnished linocuts and also as cards ... please visit my online shop.

Chaos theory . . . and carrying on as normal

What a lot has happened since my last blog post on 17 June, not only has the UK decided on Brexit and to swerve onto a different course leaving everyone on both sides of the argument bemused and *insert words of your own choice* but also here at home we've had a chaotic few weeks - stuff happens sometimes! - but we're all OK and that's the main thing.

When life gets messy it's good to take the long view and get things back into perspective . . . to help us do this we had a lovely day out at Wrest Park, somewhere we discovered a few years ago; since then English Heritage have done loads of work and there's now a lovely café and more of the house is accessible. But it's the park and beautiful pavilions that are the main attraction.

On the day we visited the unexpected bonus was that there was a brass band concert, add to that sunshine and some delicious ice creams and it was a perfect Sunday afternoon in the park. 

So . . . what's been going on in my studio?

I've designed 2 more Christmas cards for Plantlife, they'll be for sale online later in the year; and I spent an intense 5 days working on a packaging project for a Scottish design company, drawing and then carving lino faster than I thought possible! I hope to show you the finished design sometime, maybe early next year.


Then there's Gardens Illustrated, I illustrate Frank Ronan's column 'The Writer's Plot' a few months ahead of publication, in fact today I'm carving the lino block for the October issue. 

Here are the illustrations I did for the June issue . . . Camellias - do you like them? I confess that I don't but maybe that's because I've never had a garden where they grow happily and look good, frosted buds and clumps of brownish petals aren't a good look in my opinion. In the article Frank discovers that Camellias can be pruned in the Japanese cloud-pruned style, known as Niwaki. If you follow my blog you know I love Japanese design so this immediately grabbed my attention and cheered me up; so I took my inspiration from Japanese blue and white ceramics.

As I've come to expect, Frank's next article was a complete contrast; in the dry oppressive heat of the Californian summer Frank encounters a little weed, it's Groundsel which as you probably know is a common British native weed. Frank seems homesick for a damp verdant English garden:

"you know how it is when you are abroad and lonely and you meet someone slightly disgraceful from home whom you never really liked, and suddenly you feel they are full of charm and you get drunk together and talk too loudly"

Frank Ronan

I hunted around our garden and soon found a Groundsel plant that I could draw from life; looking carefully are the complex curves and points along the leaves, how the leaf wraps around the stalk and the cluster of flower buds and the fluffy seed heads, I'd begun to find Groundsel interesting too! And this sparked an idea for a project of my own through June ... 30 Wildflowers From My Garden, each day I sketched a different wildflower and posted the picture and some facts about the plant, on Instagram.  

It became fascinating ... I learned new botanical terms like 'dioica' and 'achaeophyte' and 'neophyte'.

I found that even the most mundane and common weeds have amazing stories to tell.

And at the end I realised there were many many more still to sketch, I could probably find 100 wildflowers!

So, this is something I'll probably return to from time to time and start another sketchbook of 'More Wildflowers From My Garden'.

Last week, at the end of another hectic weekend, we we went for a walk on the high fields between our village and Cambridge ... we hoped to get a glimpse of some of the air displays at Duxford Imperial War Museum and we weren't disappointed - a flypast of 19 vintage WWII planes just for us!

And on the way home, this glorious view across the cornfields and the sky full of skylarks singing - that's the tonic we needed to start another week and just focus on getting one thing done at a time - it's as good a theory as any to sort out chaos.


Celia
xx

Coming soon: 
FolkEast 2016 and Cambridge Original Printmakers Biennale