autumn fire

Winter arrived yesterday, before I could find my mittens. How rude. 

I collected this handful of fiery leaves last week. They looked even more incredible on the white of the drawing table. Roast pumpkin for lunch on the same day - perfect autumfest.

Perhaps it's just that I grew up in the Southern Hemisphere, where autumn colours are less of a big deal, but I can't believe that anyone could not go absolutely wild for fallen leaves.

Which are crunchy when raked into piles in the park, deliciously earthy smelling yes yes I know. I can't resist kicking around in them.

But the best bit, the bit I can't get over, is how each one is a such a miraculous jewel of startling, extraordinary colour.

Wild rose hips

I picked these on Hackney marshes a few weeks ago and brought a few tangled, hairy sprays into my studio. 

Who knew rose hips smelled so good, they have a kind of orangey apple freshness going on. Partly explains why they are used dried in tea, I guess. And jelly, and, in Sweden so I read, in soup. 

And as a treat for pet chinchillas. It says so in Wikipedia, it must be true folks.

Still working on leaf painting, but for now, this is how my leaves look. 

I looked through a most worrying selection of how-to books online on greens and leaves, books on botanical illustration and the like, and there certainly are some authoritative publications around. Do this, don't do that, never mix these and so on. Like I said, worrying!

Might be better to keep looking at flower painters I love, like Elizabeth Blackadder's work. 

Still, in the end, the only way to improve leaf painting is most likely to um, keep painting leaves. What say you, any ideas?

A quick drawing done at the kitchen table while I was waiting for lemon and millet muffins to bake. The recipe is super quick, with ingredients that are usually around already. Which means something warm, a bit healthy and lemony crunchy can be ready for tea in half an hour to cheer up a drizzly Monday afternoon. 

Hey, you have to make working from home fun sometimes too, right?

Colourwise,I thought that was deep blue I was stroking out into the shadow areas, but it was Windsor Purple pretending to be French Ultramarine. Heh. It needs replacing!