Battle of the daisy dome

take a closer look, it's not just a pretty picture, there's high drama going on:)
Caught this little crab spider defending it's territory or maybe even on the hunt for his dinner, apparently their venom is quite deadly if you happen to be knee high to a grasshopper!!


'Yellow' is the theme for this weeks Thematic Photographic
Check it out and join in, there's always great photos to be enjoyed over there.

Pretty as a posy

We had a few glorious hours of sunshine during the week, about a day and a half's worth!
Today was miserable, grey and wet.
So to cheer myself up I've posted a photograph I took on the sunny Wednesday to remind myself of the joys of spring and of the summer to come.
Forget-me-nots and primroses, nothing fancy but oh so pretty! No garden should be without them.
Have a look at what I did with my primroses last year, it's pretty cool:)

Thematic Photographic 'Drink'

Spoon-full of water anyone?
Check out all the other 'Drink' entries this week at Thematic Photographic

Wordless Wednesday

Dandelion clocks

Illustration Fridays topic this week is 'Poof'

One dandelion clock, one big puff and poof it's gone with the wind to create lots more dandelions.
Great, just what the garden needs!
But still I can't resist.
Poof, there goes anther one!

Rain Angel

Rain Angel


String of Pearl


Handful



Just a few more raindrops.

Purple Rain

There's been a lot of rain here recently and consistently.
So the minute we got a bit of sunshine I was out the door with my camera to collect some raindrops!
I don't know the name of this amazing purple plant, so if anybody out there has a clue I'd love to hear it:)

Flower prints

I did this flower print today with flowers from my garden.
I was inspired by this post at painted fish studio
I used the exact same technique except with flowers on watercolour paper.
The column of blue flowers are delphiniums, and of course everybody knows the pansy, the little red flowers are verbena and the last are little purple daisies.
I was amazed at the detail and colour that came out.
I have no idea how colour fast the natural dye of the flowers is but it was such a joy just to experiment.
I'll be sure to date it and record the fading, out of curiosity.

Malevolent Magpies

My bird feeders have attracted a couple of uninvited guests, monstrous magpies!
Well monstrous is a bit extreme, they're actually beautiful to look at but their tendency to eat smaller bird's babies is rather off-putting.
Naturally their carnivorous appetite has widely discouraged my little feathered friends from visiting quite so often as they have done in the past.
I'm disgusted, this time last year I was happily enjoying the antics of the Green finch and their chicks as they figured out how the feeder worked. No sign of them this year.






I still have a few blue Tits, coal tits and great tits feeding, and chaffinches too, but there haven't been any baby birdies yet.
I keep shooing off the magpies, but they're really cheeky.
They have pecked a big hole in the bird feeder to get at the nuts, do they think they're vegetarians or something!
I just wish they'd go find some roadkill for themselves and leave my feeders alone.

Primula vulgaris

The first painting in my handmade sketchbook.
It's not great but it's a start.
I decided to use the sketchbook for watercolours of my garden from life rather than from my photographs.
Painting from life really is a whole different ball game and I'm way out of practice.
I think it is much harder than using a photograph where all the colours have been decided.
Sitting in front of my primroses it was up to me to discern their delicate hues and tones.
Obviously I'm not very discerning!
My primroses aren't prim at all,they're most definitely of the vulgaris breed, overblown and blowzy :)