Beauty on my Windowsill

Outside it's still winter - ice and snow everywhere you look - but in my kitchen, it feels like the tropics have come to Canada thanks to my faithful Phalaenopsis orchids. Probably the easiest of orchids to grow in the average home without much special care and knowledge, we have four of these beauties gracing our kitchen windowsill. They seem to like the eastern exposure and reward us for our rather marginal care by blooming several times a year - and each flower spray usually lasts for several months.

Here are a couple of pointers if you should decide to try growing one of these amazing plants yourself: about the only way I have found to kill them, and quickly, is by overwatering. They can last quite a while without water, but wet roots will rot quickly and the plant will die. I usually repot ours in fresh orchid medium every year or two and water when I think of it - let the water run right through the pot for a minute or so, then put the plant back in it's place - voila, orchid care done for another week.

If you are buying a plant from one of the many non-specialty shops that carry these orchids now, make sure the leaves are firm and bright, and repot as soon as you get it home, even if it is in full bloom. Many of these plants are shipped with spagnum moss wrapped tightly around the roots - often most of the roots have rotted before the plant even gets to the store. The flowers may still look lovely, but the leaves have begun to wilt due to the dead roots. Cut off all dead roots, repot in fresh growth medium, and resist the urge to water lots, and the plant may recover. We lost a couple before I learned about this, but the ones we have now have been healthy and blooming continually for several years, getting bigger and showier blooms, and more flower spikes, with each passing year.

On the art front, I finished a couple of ACEO's today. Here is one featuring my first ever cat, Trixie. She came to live with us as an inquisitive kitten when I was 16, and I lost her to kidney failure 14 years later. From the day she came to live with us until the day she died, I never knew her to be anything but affectionate and loving to anyone she met. The barest touch of a human hand was enough to set her purring so loudly she would sound like she was about to explode. She was a brilliant ambassador for her species, even people who didn't like cats found it hard to dislike Trixie.

Until next time,

Simone

Stones

That's what I'm still working on. Here is a progress pic, as well as a closeup of the bottom right corner, which is the only part that is pretty much finished at this point. All the big shapes are blocked in, now it's just a matter of adding layers and layers of glazes to make everything look three dimensional, and then tweaking the values and colours so it all fits together. This is the fun part, as the painting begins to emerge - but it's also fiddly and slow, as I have to wait for one layer to try before adding another. Of course, acrylics dry fast, but there's still a certain amount of sitting and waiting time involved.



In the meantime, I'm playing with some more ACEO's. Perhaps because there is so much grey in "Stones", I'm feeling the urge to splash on some colour - here is one of this week's examples:




The ground in our forest is still covered in a solid layer of snow and ice, but the sun has some real warmth to it now, so spring has got to be just around the corner! At least, I certainly hope so - winter has its own beauty, but for me, it's always about 2 months longer than I think it really needs to be.

Until next time,

Simone

Spike's big surprise

The big surprise of the day was courtesy of our Mali Uromastyx lizard, Spike. We awoke to find his - ummm, make that her - cage covered in eggs. By the time she was done, she had produced 11 eggs! No wonder she was looking a little portly around the middle lately.....here she is looking very maternal, but honestly I think she was just using the egg as a handy pillow. This one was number 9, and I think by then she was getting more than a little tired of the process.

On the art front, I finished a couple more ACEO's and got a fair bit of work done on "Stones". Here's one of the ACEO's, this is ornamental corn. So much fun to work with all these bright colors, especially as "Stones" is going to be mostly greys with just hints of color showing through.

And here's the other ACEO - an acrylic of one of my cats from years ago, Penny. She looks a little tough on this picture, but it was all an act - she was as sweet as they come.

Unitl next time,

Simone

Welcome to my blog!

"Itchy" - art card, acrylic, 2 1/2" by 3 1/2"

I'm looking forward to sharing with you a little about my life, and my paintings.
I'm currently working on my first acrylic painting (other than a few art cards I've done in acrylics in the last few weeks), and I hope to have an "in progress" picture of that uploaded soon.

I've been doing a lot of "art cards" in the last little while. These are trading card sized tiny paintings - just 2 1/2" by 3 1/2" - "Itchy", at the top, is an example. While they hardly qualify as "serious" art and are unlikely to ever hang in a museum, these are an awful lot of fun. They're also a great opportunity to experiment with different subjects and media without spending a fortune on supplies, or a huge chunk of time.

In my spare time, I like to hang out with the big love of my life (after my family, that is). Justin is a 7 year old Cheval Canadien, Canada's National Horse. I've had him since he was 11 months old, and we've learned a lot from each other. There is also the menagerie in our home, which currently consists of dogs, birds lizards and a pet rat. And of course, there are the woods around our house and everything that grows and lives in them, and ever present source of inspiration and contemplation.

I'll end this with just one of the inhabitants of our little corner of the world who caught my eye and provided fodder for my brush:

"Praying Mantis" - art card, watercolor

Until next time - Simone