The Last Rose of October

"The Last Rose of October"
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HTC6500LVW

The days are growing shorter and cooler, and the sky is becoming clearer and bluer. It's October, the growing season is ending, and the time of harvest is here. A few hardy blooms remain in my garden. I had the good fortune of seeing a goldfinch perched on the coneflower stalks, pecking at the seeds of the dried flower heads.  With wonder, I observed that the only rose bush is putting forth one more bud.

We inherited this rose bush with the house, before there was a flower bed. It was a sad little thing, growing out of the yard itself at the corner of the house. Last year, only one bloom made it. The leaves were chewed full of holes, and it didn't quite clear a foot in height. When we finally got around to putting in the flower bed on the street side of the house, I decided that the rose would need to be transplanted. It needed to be dug up anyway, otherwise the rototiller would have destroyed it. Up it came and into a temporary home while we weeded, turned over and amended the soil, and bought a few perennials. I didn't have high hopes for the rose, but we put it back in the ground anyway.

This year, we made sure to fertilize the rose bush in particular, and keep the pests off as best we could. This last October rose is the seventh bloom. It's a blinding hot pink, so bright that the human eye and the camera have a difficult time focusing on it. The chilly weather has preserved the rose for days now, a late summer firework. I took this photo early on a Saturday morning.  The sun had only just come over the horizon, and a few raindrops from the storms the night before lingered on the silky petals.  Liquid gems sparkled and caught my eye, and my lens.  

The photo was originally in color, but I want the focus to be on the lighting, and to capture the melancholy feel that autumn sometime brings.  Bittersweet, the end of warm sunny days, but the beginning of wonderful crisp days that lift my soul on brisk winds.

Butterfly and Coneflower

"Butterfly and Coneflower"
pencil sketch

In the search for direction in life (a master's degree, maybe?) and in the process of re-reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, I have let my art blog fall to the wayside.  It is past time that I return to the dedication of my art.

I did this sketch a few weeks ago now.  The coneflowers (echinacea) in my garden are in full bloom as we speak.  We planted the flower bed late in the season last year in our new house- in August, if I recall correctly.  Most of our perennials came back bigger, better, and stronger.  Only my fancy rudbeckia did not return.  I have only a little more room in the front bed, but I do love rudbeckia so.  It's sort of my namesake, after all.  This time, I think I will only get the simple and hardy wild type- just the bright yellow petals and the velvety centers which give them their common name, Black-eyed Susan.

Honeybee

"Honeybee"
pen sketch

I was absurdly pleased this morning to see a bee visiting the purple speedwell growing in one of my flowerbeds this morning.  "Look!  A bee!" I squealed with delight to my significant other.  As spring progresses into summer and more of my flowers bloom, I've looked to see if I have any visiting pollinators.  Alas, not even the clover in the lawn has attracted bees, at least not while I've been around to observe it (admittedly, I am not home very much- something that I'd like to remedy).

You don't have to follow the news to know that bee populations are dwindling rapidly.  Just sit outside on a warm afternoon near some flowers, and you'll be surprised (and maybe saddened) as I am by the lack of these fuzzy little guys.  It's tragic for the bees, and bad news for us two-legs.  Without bees, we lose a lot of pollinators that make agriculture possible.  Certain species of flowering plants that require bees to assist in their reproduction may see a decline, as well.  There are many other species of pollinators out there, but how long until climate change and disease affect them, too?  

I want to help the bees, and I try to do so by planting flowers they find attractive in my garden, and allowing some dandelions and white clover to live in my lawn.  It's all right if I don't have pristine perfect grass if it's helping nature out a little.

Bees

"Mistaken for a flower"
HTC One camera phone

I almost didn't draw something today, but I convinced myself that it was worthwhile to try, even if it didn't turn out great.  And it would be okay if it didn't turn out well, because I'm rather tired and am on the eighth day of working twelve days straight.  Yesterday, during a very long and hot twelve hours of being on my feet, there was a bee that would not leave me alone.  (Foolish me, wearing perfume to an outdoor event).  I did have the opportunity to take some photos with my phone, since it was both quite persistent and docile in insisting that I had to be a flower of some sort.  One of the photos came out surprisingly artsy; my phone's camera was having trouble with the bright sunlight, but it yielded a very interesting effect.  Below is the drawing based off of the photo.  Bye the bee, we ought to be concerned about their declining population.  Plant native (or at least non-invasive) flowering plants in your back yard as a start to helping out- I'm planning on getting some veronica to augment my flowerbed.

"Bee the Light"
pen- sketchbook

Floral studies- pansy and crocus

"Crocuses"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

Dreaming of spring, I thought of the flowers that I would like to put in my garden.  Crocuses shall have to wait for planting until the fall, but I'm looking forward to adding some bright, early splashes of color with pansies.  I've done a pansy study before from the flowers in my mother's garden, and doing this drawing took me back to that moment in April sunshine.  When it's cold, smells are dampened, but when the first warm spring winds come, the air is alive with rich soil and heady chlorophyll.  My favorite spring scents are lilacs and hyacinth.  Although snow is falling (again), the first green shoots will soon push through the thawing earth.

There was no preliminary sketch in pencil for either of these drawings; I simply took my pen, began with the basic shapes of the flowers, and added detail.  I have a tendency to vertically elongate my subjects, especially as seen in the pansies below.  A lot of (out)lines were used, giving these more of a design quality than realism per se.

"Pansies"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

Longwood Gardens Photojournal

I went to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania this past Friday with a few good girlfriends to have a look at the holiday display.  My sister-in-law and I had never been there before, and didn't know what to expect.  Both of us brought our D300s.  It was absolutely beautiful, if much more crowded than anticipated.  We began in the atrium and came out just after dusk, where we were wowed by all of the sparkling strings of lights.  It was a rewarding photography experience, although somewhat challenging with low indoor lighting and then taking photos at night.

My camera did not quite capture some of the true colors of the lights, but I was able to use Lightroom to correct this to some extent.  Many of my photos were taken on a manual setting and required little to no editing; as it grew darker and the crowds grew larger, I ended up setting the camera on automatic.  It was a tight space in the atrium and there was only a little time to set up each shot as we were literally pushed along by the tide-like crowd.

There were lots of beautiful subjects in all of the flowers and decorations.  I particularly enjoyed photos where I was able to take advantage of evening light pouring in through the windows of the atrium.  I've noticed that I gravitate towards close-ups, and could use a little improvement in non-landscape scene shots.  All in all, Longwood Gardens was exciting and almost magical with the wonder and peace that it inspired in me.  I look forward to going again someday.