Changing season - welcome to Autumn

Thankfully, it is now much cooler and you can feel the season turning.  I, for one, am relieved, as I have really struggled during the heat of this last summer.  I enjoy Autumn, so look forward to greeting those plants which come into their own at this time of the year.  Above are cyclamen hederifolium, a sure sign that Autumn is here.  I have several pots of them on the shady patio and they seem to be happy there.  The flowers come before the leaves and the leaves have beautiful marble patterns. 

Here are some others.

Also in a pot on the shady patio are some japanese anemones.  I think this may be Pretty Lady Susan, but am not sure at all!  It is flowering away well.  My usually very reliable japanese anemone Bressingham Glow, which is in a border under a jasmine, has not enjoyed the heat and lack of water. It is flowering, but is a lot shorter than usual and with fewer leaves and flowers.  

This japanese anemone was sold as Ruffled Swan, but I think it is Wild Swan, as it doesn't seem to have the ruffled edges.  However, it does have pretty lilac backs to the petals.   

It used to be in a south facing position, but hated the intense sun, so has been moved. It does like to be well watered and is quick to wilt, but that is due to it living in a pot (and probably needing to be divided!).

On the whole, it is an undemanding and rather lovely plant, brightening up a shady area.

Another plant which has been doing sterling service and flowering for a long time is Clematis Wyevale, a herbaceous clematis, again in a pot.  It will let you know if it needs watering too, but just quietly flowers away, with a slightly soap-like fragrance on warm days. 

The hydrangeas have flowered but fading much more quickly then usual and the asters and helianthus Lemon Queen were also affected by the heat and drought, so are smaller than usual, but with the recent rain, they have perked up considerably.  There is still lots to enjoy!

Slow drawing - more double page spreads

I am still filling my slow drawing journal with patterns and here are some of the latest ones.  These are taken from the slow drawing lessons by Amy Maricle of Mindful Art Studio.  She usually has a lesson most Wednesdays from 6-7 pm in the UK (unless she is taking a break, in which case she leaves the most recent pattern available).  The videos are available for two days, unless you have a paid membership (which I don't).  The pattern above is called 'Bean' and I am considering whether to colour/paint in any of the shapes.

This is one of the most recent ones I have done (Botanical Watercolour for Beginners) and it was so relaxing - slow watercolouring, adding more water, then less water to the pigment as the shapes are layered up.

This one was inspired by one of Amy's patterns, 'Spirit',  but then I made it my own.  Cells? Tiny creatures? Seeds? 

Another one of Amy's called 'Grecian' but I started with one full circle and added the leaves/scales all around it. 

This pattern is called 'Prickers' and I love the complicated end result with the depth of the layers.  It was actually relatively simple to do and it built up quite quickly.  I still have a few single pages to go before the journal is full.

A little garden review - late summer

Considering how dry it has been over the last two months, there are some plants that have coped very well.  Above is the triple coloured hibiscus, although I think there are only two colours on it now.  It is in the sunniest part of the garden and has not been watered at all.  Below it is an agapanthus which has flowered really well but which is in a pot, so it has been watered.

Here is the hibiscus again, showing the pink flowers and some of the white ones.  

The other hibiscus, Syriacus Oiseau Bleu, in the north facing border, has done very well too, again, no extra water from me. This is one of my favourite plants and often features in my blog.  Roses in the borders have done well, with no additional watering but those in pots have needed a weekly and sometime twice-weekly watering to keep going.  My ferns in the north border have suffered a lot, despite me adding water bottles near them to try and help.  I am not sure they will come back but we shall see.

We have now had some rain and temperatures are a little cooler,  for which I am very thankful.   

In other news, my cosmos have finally decided to join the party and start flowering.  Hopefully they will go on into the Autumn.  Above is Cupcakes Blush which is one I haven't grown before.

I'm not quite sure what this one is - but it is pretty.

These are at the front of the house - Candy Stripe, which I think is pretty reliable.

Candy Stripe again...

...and again. I like that the flowers are all slightly different.

As all of us need to do, I am thinking about how to adapt what I grow next year.  Cosmos Candy Stripe and Cosmos Sulphureus Polidor have both done well considering and I think perhaps I need more verbena bonariensis. I have some white foxgloves seedlings coming along and have three teasel plants growing on.  

I have also just ordered some tulips - Finola for the front, Ronaldo and Princess Irene for the back. They should arrive September/October time.  

The other thing I need to do is cut down the number of small pots of things I have.  Lots to think about and always lots to do!

Accordion mini journal

For those people who expressed an interest in seeing my accordion journal for the Inchie Challenge, (I am looking at you in particular, kjsutcliffe!) here it is.

It is small and unfolds with the pictures on both sides.

You can also keep it 'closed' and turn the pages like a book.

The simplicity of the green circles for Eucalyptus is probably my favourite from this challenge.

Closely followed by this one, where I took the idea of a circle and complicated it with lots of pattern. I do enjoy drawing mandala-style images.

Inchie Challenge 2026

I have just finished the Inchie Challenge for 2026 - seven days of prompts using little watercolour pieces, two inches square.  This is run by Amy Maricle of Mindful Art Studio and I have been joining in for a couple of years. She is still offering this for free  She also offers Slow Drawing most weeks (you need to be signed up to the free tier on her site) - she does take the occasional week off!  She also offers much more on the paid part of her website, such as an extended Inchie Challenge, but I have not signed up to that.  

This year the prompts were (from left to right): Wildflower; Sprinkle; Blue; Landscape.

(From left to right again): Lines; Eucalyptus; Complicate.  What would you have drawn/painted?

Slow drawing is about taking your time and not rushing to complete something. The patterns are usually based in nature and open to interpretation; in fact, Amy encourages us to make the patterns our own and explore.  Materials are few - watercolour paper/card, a permanent ink pen and watercolours.  It is an hour of quiet concentration that I really enjoy each week.

Another art journal

 I've been working on another little journal as a spin-off from one of the lessons from the art journal course.  It's something I work on every now and again.  

The cover is a 'ghost print' from a gel plate printing session.

This page started as a pastel watercolour background which was decorated with drawn flowers.  The rest of the background was painted with dark blue acrylic paint.

On the right hand page I cut some flaps and added a stamped image.

This page started as a gel print, which was stencilled over, adding paint pen marks and gold squiggles. 

On these pages, there is a collage and a page with a pocket.

Here is the pocket page without the folded paper.  I really enjoyed drawing all the different lines within the circles as it is a very meditative activity.

Wanderlust 2026 - weeks fourteen to twenty-six - Paper Alchemy (part two)

Here are the other pages I particularly enjoyed making from the Paper Alchemy theme of the art journaling course.  Above is a collage of printed vellum, magazine transfers onto sticky tape, material, and photos. It was all about our past. 

We made 'paper leather' for this lesson, using packaging paper and coating it with a mixture of acrylic paint and glue. For some pieces, we added oil and scrunched it up and flattened it out many times which gave it a very 'leathery' feeling.  We also encased thread and sequins in tissue paper, which was rather messy, but fun!

As I make cards, making these cards was right up my street.  Abstract painting, painting an animal (our much missed cat, Scruffy) and then painting the background for one and finally using packaging to make a collage card.  

I used a matcha chocolate wrapper.

Watercolour flowers with added tissue paper foliage and gold accents worked really well.  Painting in the background made the flowers pop.

I did another version in watered down acrylics which worked well, but seems to have lost a bit of expression/spontaneity along the way.  I still like it though!

Making bunting using paper and material was a really enjoyable week.  I chose to make a single piece so that it could go in my journal. Alcohol inks on the gel plate made some lovely papers.

Finally for this theme was looking at the Japanese art of Kintsugi - taking something (usually a ceramic) which has got broken and then mending it, highlighting the cracks with gold.  Crackle paste came out to play here.  The photo in the centre is of Tupholme Abbey.

The crackle paste worked really well.  Our next theme is 'Stories Unfolded' - I think this may be another good one for me!

Wanderlust 2026 - weeks fourteen to twenty-six - Paper Alchemy (part one)

 I was really looking forward to the Paper Alchemy theme for the art journaling course, as I really enjoy working with paper and was eager to see what we would be creating.  It didn't disappoint as these were some of my favourite weeks so far.

Making journals has featured several times in this theme and this journal has pages made using calico, cotton and tracing paper.  The pages sometimes have various layers on them, including gesso mixed with plaster of paris and texture paste, as well as collage.

We worked on the pages, poking through them with an awl and burning through them (this shows one of the tracing paper pages on the right).

We also put items behind the pages and then sanded off the gesso/plaster of paris mix, leaving the image - in this case, paperclips.  The journal is small and introduced me to lots of different techniques, including the binding, where the pages are sewn together, the covers placed over the top and the pages are folded back and glued over the spine. I loved making this!

Another journal made using a masterboard.  The black squiggles represent ancient writing and we had to run the page under a tap before the writing was dry so that the writing was faded and blurred, which worried me initially but which worked well, as the paper had been layered with collage and acrylic paint first and been left to dry.

Collage decorations were added to the pages.

The words on this page were taken from the scrap of book page I used and they jumped out at me.  I love serendipity!

Collaging a scene was enjoyable too, and we added details to our collaged paper. I have a large collection of painted pages, so it was good to be able to use a few of them.

Another journal, but as my main art journal was getting rather bulky, I decided to recreate smaller pages on the page.  (I have since decided to make the extra journal but not add it to my main journal, so this may feature in another post).

Top left is a pop-out/exploding/flower page with stamped art words. 

Behind the starry door is a stamped eye.

The collaged book page door reveals a fold out.

Finally, a gel plate printed door reveals a spinner (with some of my favourite bought tissue paper on the left, echoing some of the colours).

More to come in part two.