Work began on Monday drawing into the frottage plant prints I made the previous week. Here we have four details (above) and two drawings in their progress so far. I'm pleased with how the work is going, but thought I may have got more done than I did.

I didn't actually get that much time to spend drawing every day, in fact a couple of days saw no drawing at all because I spent a lot of time in the real garden this week. A dry, warm weather front came in following heavy rainfall during previous weeks. The soil dried out rapidly and watering was required nearly every day. Weeds and grass had grown ferociously during the wet spell, and on Thursday I completely remodelled a flower bed at the front of the house, digging out old plants, grass and weeds and planting some new astrantia, aquilegia, and some I don't know what they are at all, donated by our kind neighbour who just happens to be a demon gardener - I do love a chaotic flower bed full of surprises. It kept me busy working and musing on those weird things which come out of the ground, seed heads blowing around, curly tendrils, bulbs, branching things and the fascination of the sweet pea pods drying into twisty shapes, their seeds showing more prominently through their cases; and when I came back indoors, my pen moved to depict them.

One day the sun shone down through the chestnuts, illuminating their spreading leaves like giants' hands, bringing to mind this most beautiful poem.

When I am Among the Trees 
by Mary Oliver
​
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Carrot top update - it did flower! No longer attached to the plant in its pot, I cut the triffidy bit off because it was draining too much energy from the rest of the plant, but it has flourished just in water. The rest of the plant is looking very pretty, with delicate frondy leaves and doing well now it has more energy.

The process of its growth reminded me of some forgotten work I made years ago. I took prints from some umbels by inking them up with a print roller, then transferred the image onto paper by placing the sheet over the inky plants and rolling the back of the sheet with a large wooden roller. Then I began to draw into the prints - the tentative marks show the very earliest beginnings of mark-making techniques I use today.
I can just about make out the year 2008 beside my signature in the lower right corner. I showed this one in Perthshire Open Studios that year and a friend bought it. I then forgot all about it until 2014 when a I visited the friend's house and spotted it hanging in a frame in the lounge. I have no other record of this work than the above photo I took that day - difficult to capture though the glass in its frame on the wall, but I'm glad I have it. It took me ages to locate and dig it out of my photo album. The friend moved to France and then disappeared (I fear the worst) and I will most likely never see this work again.

It was worth taking the time to find the image, not only am I glad to see it again but I mentioned in my last post that I fancied doing something different with my new work moving on, and this is it. My collection of weird stuff on my work room table keeps growing, and it's got to move on to make space, so I will try making some prints from them to draw on with all my current mark-making. I am excited about the prospect.

Just two weeks on and my avocado stone sprout is going crazy. The first one to sprout is pictured below, but the latest, No.3, is really scaring me - its root is all twisty, and when I move the jar it lashes around like a worm, and it has produced something snaky and hairy in its water. Nature is terrifying, I'm the rabbit caught in the headlights - I don't want to look, but I can't stop looking.

These are my very first successes after many years of trying to get an avocado stone to sprout! (Apologies for hairy finger, looks like everything is sprouting right now)

I just can't believe how this detail from Before There Were Saturdays relates to the current avocado stones sprouts, given I have never had any success with growing them before.
By the way, I am thinking about doing something different with new work moving forward. I still haven't found what it is, but it will happen.

Photos of a parking lot we walk through on our daily amble with the dog, the paint which marks out the spaces for cars suggesting strange alphabets, and the word eep! I had a friend with a cat called Eep when I was a student in Aberdeen.
I'm still not really getting down to any real work on my lovely new paper. My hands have stopped shaking, but we have had a stressful time this week sorting out business with our solicitor, still trying to get my father's estate concluded following my brother's death and making our wills etc. Who would have thought it would take over four years.

​Instead, I have been in a sort of pattern-making frenzy (see my Binky McKee blog) which has kept me sane during difficult times. There is something about the jigsaw-puzzle nature of pattern-making which is totally absorbing, forcing anxiety and negative thoughts far out of my mind, a soothing, quiet activity with a practical and useful product as the end goal. And lots of cheerful flowers to draw!