Having a break.

My camera is still very much a 'new toy' and I like to seize every opportunity to take some photographs. Since the first butterfly of the year, I have been trying to get a close up of one. I've often been seen chasing a butterfly around the garden with my camera in my hand, ready to call out 'say cheese' as soon as the little blighter lands on a flower. I've even tried waiting close to a butterfly-friendly bush such as Hebe or Buddleia, but always without success. Yesterday, to my huge delight, this wonderful Red Admiral fluttered past all the tempting flowers in the garden and settled on a rock. I ran indoors to grab my trusty camera and, to my amazement on my return, the little chappy was still there obviously enjoying a short break from his daily toil. I fired off a couple of shots on full zoom and then started to close in for something better. That was when he decided he'd rested enough and took to the air once more. I followed him hopefully across my garden but nothing would tempt him to settle again. Still, I got this shot so I'm not displeased, and maybe he'll came back to pose again one day. I hope so.

The Cavalry

A week or two ago I noticed a very large number of Black Fly colonising on my Runner Beans, Peas and few plants around the garden. I haven't had the time to do anything about it, but even if I had, I am reluctant to spray chemicals, even 'safe' ones.

Yesterday I went to inspect my 'veg' and the Black Fly didn't seem quite as bad as it had been. Then I saw the reason. As I watched, a 'Ladybird' appeared from beneath a leaf. A moment later, another one. When I inspected the plants more closely I found many Ladybirds munching away on those horrible little black flies. Hurray, the cavalry had arrived.

Now, being a complete ignoramus in such matters, I do need to look up why Ladybirds come in different colours and varieties. Most of mine are orange with black spots, there are a few of the traditional red with black spots, and just the odd one of the black with orange spot variety. I seem to recall reading somewhere that there is a variety of Ladybird that is not so nice and not so beneficial in the garden, but I can't recall the details now. I'll go and do some research as soon as I can but, in the meantime, if you know more about this then please leave a comment.

Year round garden

There is no way I could ever call myself a 'gardener' as I don't have a great deal of knowledge of plants or the conditions they all require, however, I do appreciate having a garden that always looks nice and always looks cared for. Since purchasing my current property, which already had a nicely laid-out garden, I have looked for ways to give it year round interest but with minimum effort. As a very busy working man I have too little time for tending to a garden and I quickly realised that summer bedding plants, as nice as they are, only fill the garden during the summer.

As a result, I started to take cuttings from shrubs to increase their numbers, and also purchased a new shrub from time to time. Over the last few years, the space for bedding plants has reduced dramatically, and now I have very few empty places for the scores of annuals I used to put out every June. This has a number of advantages. Firstly the garden never looks empty even in the winter. Secondly, where there's a plant there can't be a weed. Thirdly, maintenance is reduced quite considerably. And finally, there is always something going on to look at and be interested in. It is this last point that has formed the focus of my latest web page ... "My Garden". The page shows flowers from every month of the year and there is no part of the year where there isn't something going on.

With my trusty new camera I am having great fun taking photo's of the ever changing display of colour in my garden and I will continue to post my latest photo's on my web page. Since my main passion are Fuchsia's and since they are beginning to flower about now, I am really looking forward to snapping lots of Fuchsia photo's over the next few months. I may even make a web page specifically for them especially since my pages about Fuchsia Cuttings and Fuchsia Care seem to be so popular.

A happy sad event

It was a normal quite day in my office when the telephone rang. I picked it up expecting the usual business caller but it was my wife calling to tell me we had some unusual visitors in our garden - a duck and her babies. At lunchtime, with much enthusiasm, I headed for the car and drove home to have a look for myself. Sure enough, a female Mallard and 14 of the cutest, fuzziest, cuddliest little bundles of fluff you could ever imagine, were wandering around our garden. My wife had put out the only thing she could think of for them ... a kitchen sink bowl full of water. A short time later we peered through the window and fell into hysterics when we saw the mother sat on the water as if she was queen of her own lake, while all the babies jumped up and down trying to get in. The bowl was only a little bit bigger than the duck herself and she certainly didn't have any manoeuvring room. Fortunately I am the proud owner of a builders cement mixing tray. You know the things ... about 4 feet square, 2" deep and made of durable plastic. I put that down on one of our patios and half-filled it with water, so the babies could have a paddle too. Very soon the whole tribe were splashing around and having fun. It may only be an inch of cold tap water to us, but when you're a baby duck it's a big dangerous shark-infested ocean just waiting to be conquered. Soon after, the family followed Mum across the garden and they all disappeared under a railed fence between me and my neighbour. We were concerned for the ducks because, like many city neighbourhoods, we have more than our fair share of cats coming into our gardens and I have found far too many birds on my lawn with their heads ripped off for me to realise that baby ducks who can't fly are very vulnerable to such threats. We didn't see the ducks again that day, but the next day Mother Duck returned. Sadly, this time she only had one baby with her. We will never know what happened to the other 13. It is easy to believe they were slaughtered by a rampant cat but they could easily have been plucked into the air by marauding Magpie's who swoop overhead in plenty. Truth is, we will never know. The day after that, Mother duck visited again ... on her own. But fortunately for wildlife, they haven't been given emotions such as grief and misery, and the following day the Mother Duck was accompanied by 2 males, squawking and quacking for her attention. The day after that, there were 4 males, and the next day 5. Isn't it typical that when there were children to tend to, the males were nowhere to be seen, but as soon as the kids are gone, Mum is flirting with every guy on the block. Though it is sad to think of those 14 ducklings wiped out so quickly, it has been a joy to have been a part of their short existence. Mother Duck and her entourage appear to be daily visitors to us at the moment. I'm sure there's nothing unusual in this if you live in the country, but we live in a city and this is the first time in my 60 years that I've seen Mallards in my garden. It probably won't last long, but it's a thrill to see them and when they stop coming we shall always have the memory of the 14 ducklings splashing about on our patio.

Chestnut - a horse portrait

My forum's Monthly Drawing Project for April is a photograph of a horse. I know nothing about the horse other than I saw it lying down on a bed of straw as I walked near the Grand Union canal one cold and frosty January morning.

I'm quite pleased with my effort to draw him in pencil but I recognise two significant mistakes in the composition. I shouldn't have drawn the whole of his body and I shouldn't have tried to draw the straw he's laying on. The 'project' really calls for us to be loyal to the photograph, and that was therefore my first consideration, but as a portrait, artistic licence would have been better served by drawing his head and shoulders only, I think.

Enjoying Pencil.

For so long as I've been enjoying art (6 or 7 years on and off), I have always had a special leaning towards pencil drawing, but I've avoided trying to do anything too ambitious. I've recently tried a number pieces that have challenged my limited capabilities.

The Duchess of Montrose contains more detail than I have ever attempted before. This engine has fond memories for me because it was one that I had in model form as a boy. It was one of the Hornby 00 range and I had quite a nice set up back in the late 50's, early 60's.

The fist is one I copied from an art book. The outline was not so hard to draw but I did find the shading to be quite challenging. The shading gives the hand solidity and dimension, as well as displaying the veins, and the whole effect is one of a hand being lit from above. It's not exciting as far as drawings go, but it was an interesting exercise nonetheless.

Finally, my jacket. It has a silky quilted lining and I wanted to see if I could convey that silky sheen in a black and white pencil drawing. Though I think others could have done it better, I am not disappointed with the result.

If you are a beginner with pencil or any other drawing or painting medium, you might be interested in visiting my web site. You may also be interested in joining my art forum. It is run for beginners by beginners, so we're all in the same boat and help each other where we can.

What happened to March?

Once upon a time I had this silly notion that I would keep a blog and post to it most days. It sounded like fun and surely couldn't be hard. Duh? Little did I appreciate that there's not always time in a busy day to sit online tapping out useless thoughts in the futile hopes that they may be read by anyone. When I do break away from my day job and household chores long enough to pursue something more pleasurable, my first thoughts turn to my web site. Is everything ok there? Have I been hacked? Have I had many visitors today? Does anything need doing maintenance-wise? Then it's into my forum to catch up on the posts. Read everything that's new, toss out a few comments in reply and check that no 'undesirables' are flooding the place with spam. Pastimes like Photography, Drawing and Painting seem to be harder than ever to make time for, and the blog ... well, it's now April and I'm staggered to see that I last posted in February. Clearly this is one of my pastimes that must be marked 'Must try harder'.