Blog Archives

Is there a simpler way?

31/5/2014

I find this a really useful question.

Worried? Stressed? A difficult decision to make perhaps.

Try asking 'Is there a simpler way?' Step back and give yourself a little bit of time to think.

It may be that you're being perfectionist and could lower your standards, it may be that you could ask for help, it may be that you could opt out of something you don't really want to do....but there is nearly always a simpler way I find.

What if it's not actually as complicated as you think...

A glorious day and geranium psilostemnon are opening.

4 Comments

Simply..something completely different....

30/5/2014

6 Comments

Do you have seven minutes and ten seconds to spare?

This video (thank you Sandi for the link) will make you smile, though surprisingly the good people of Nottingham who feature in it manage to keep straight faces. There must have been wonderful laughter and hysterical giggles in the making of it, and huge fun, don't you think?

Love it!

Here in Scotland, where the best word for our weather is 'variable' the best policy is to simply take your sunshine when you can get it - this is my early evening perch......

next to the robin's!

I hope you had some sunshine today.

6 Comments

Simply..colourful....

29/5/2014

6 Comments

Another inspiration for using bright colours in the landscape (see last two posts)...vermilion,

and viridian on Monet's famous bridge.

On a more domestic scale...I painted this little window lime green before we made the gate and

half way through painting this blue seat yellow I decided I liked it half done with some of the blue still showing through.

Do you like to use brilliant colours in your garden, or your home?

Even if you don't have a garden you might have a window box or a tub in say,bright blue with orange marigolds?

I didn't live in a house with a garden until I was 27 but on the windows of the third floor tenement flat in Glasgow I had two window boxes filled with nasturtiums which thrilled me and brightened up the whole street.

6 Comments

Simply..credit where it's due....

28/5/2014

8 Comments

I LOVE that so many of you love the red gate!

It's such a simple thing really, isn't it - to paint a gate in a primary colour.

Many years ago I read an article about the American painter Robert Dash, by the late Rosemary Verey (Gardens Illustrated magazine June/July 1993). In his garden were a few very simple structures painted in zingy colours, and I tucked the images away in the back of my mind for use one day....

Several gardens later, and in a Swedish wooden house in Scotland with a bright yellow door, the idea came back to me as I stood looking from the sitting room window at the back garden. I had studied landscape design in Sweden, and had come across the work of the British architect Ralph Erskine there. He used primary colours on the doors and windows of his wooden houses. To my eye his colours just looked 'right'.

There is a recent trend among minimalists for Tiny Houses and you may like his small house he called The Box - astonishingly, built in 1941. Beautiful! (Though not with his signature primary colours.)

I like seeing now how all these influences, over many years, came together in what seemed at the time to come out of the blue as I stood looking out of the window -

'What the garden needs is a red gate.'

PS After I had written the above I kept browsing (as you do) and found to my amazement that a picture of my red gate is on Robert Dash's image page!! GOSH!

8 Comments

Simply..that red gate....

27/5/2014

18 Comments

(Click to enlarge)

I do love the red gate!

The paint goes by the fun name of Scooter Red.

It sings out a clear note in the beautiful landscape.

Thank you to Flor who made my day with this lovely comment on it:-

..it has a quiet elegance but firm existence.

You will notice we have a yellow gate too....

18 Comments

Simply..the spaces in between....

26/5/2014

12 Comments

A warm welcome if you have just come over to my blog from Miss Minimalist!

You know it is said the silences are as important as the sounds in music, and the negative spaces as vital as the positive ones in a painting? I think the spaces in between the activities of day to day life are just as important, and I realise that many of my blogposts are about these moments in between.

In between chores, work, apppointments and the general busyness of life, I have learned to savour the little gaps and pauses. Sometimes I am consciously looking for subjects for the blog, for photos to delight my (and hopefully your) eye, for little spots of calm in a somtimes hectic schedule, and because I now write about them I notice them more, or more importantly for a simpler life, I take the time to create them.

Some are only seconds long, but I treasure them :- I stick my nose out of the back door first thing and smell the weather, look out of the glass front door every single time I pass it, take my coffee outside whenever I can, sit on the porch to look at the garden in the late afternoon light, pick a posy for the bedside tables, hide for a wee while in the greenhouse with a book....

What treasured moments in between do you have in your day (and can you build in more?)

look really closely at something beautiful....

12 Comments

Simply..handkerchiefs....

25/5/2014

13 Comments

No, not to wipe away my tears at my old art school going on fire, but hanging on the 'handkerchief tree'!

We went specially to Benmore Botanic Gardens to see this beautiful specimen in its full splendour.

It's Davidia involucrata, also known as the Chinese dove tree and was introduced from China by the plant collector Father Armand David in the 19th century.

The actual flower is small and can just be seen in the centre here inside the two white bracts..

This one is about ten metres high and we've never seen it quite so full of handkerchiefs/doves..

Between the beauty of the tree and a wonderful sunset, a walk with a friend and this upbeat message from broadcaster, fellow alumna and chair of the Glasgow School of Art board of governors Muriel Gray, I feel quite uplifted.

Do you find solace in nature at times?

I often say beauty sustains me, and it's true.

PS I'm featured on Miss Minimalist today - www.missminimalist.com - an essential site for the would-be minimalist (though looking round I'm wondering if I really deserve the title 'minimalist'! Well, I'm working towards it.....and enjoying the journey).

13 Comments

Simply such a loss....

24/5/2014

6 Comments

Glasgow School of Art.

The building stands, the library is gone.

I loved that library.

I am reminded of the fire in York Minster in 1984. I lived in York at the time and I remember the eerie hush in the city in the morning when people realised what had happened (the fire occurred during the night). No one was speaking much and the only sound apart from the poignant sound of the Minster bells striking the hours as usual, was a helicopter circling round.

Rebuidling began very soon after - the will was there, the skills were there and the money was found....

6 Comments

Simply saddened....

23/5/2014

12 Comments

..and shocked at the news that Glasgow School of Art has been badly damaged by fire today. I find myself unable to think of much else this evening. Thankfully no one was hurt.

12 Comments

Simply..tough as old boots....

22/5/2014

10 Comments

..but a lot prettier. It's hard to believe that the lovely sea thrift here was completely under salt water for a week during the storms in January.

One of the ways of simply living for me is to be in touch daily with the natural world and I always look out for the flowering of thrift, armeria maritima, on these particular rocks. I've done a number of paintings of it.

Maybe it's time to do another, to keep, since the others all sold long ago..

10 Comments

Simply ..full of a number of things....

21/5/2014

8 Comments

The world is so full of a number of things
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings

Robert Louis Stevenson

(Now don't ask 'Are kings happy?' Of course they are.)

Here are a number of random things...some happy, some less so..

Sitting on my sofa I have watched thirty of forty gannets diving for more than an hour - there must be a big shoal of fish out there, and swallows are swooping to the ledge at the top of the sitting room window - another nest I wonder?

Monday was a lovely gardening day although thunder rumbled and echoed around the mountains and glens all day, and by evening there was a great thunderstorm. The hotel was hit by lightning and set on fire, two neighbours' televisions blew up and one's phone was put out! Nature can be frightening...

I'm a great fan of Sarah Raven. She has a good eye for colour, is full of inspiring ideas, her books on gardening are great, but her prices are too high for me (apart from the seeds which are great value).

She does have sales however, and from her sales I have bought tulip bulbs, solar lights, wonderful smelling Tomato Leaf Soap, napkins which although faded have worn well over ten years or so, water proof tissue paper which is lovely for wrapping gifts of flowers from the garden... see her site here. but be aware that when she says things are hardy or flower for six months she is talking of deepest Sussex....

'A Second Life' just came, and I'm off to read it now!

8 Comments

Simply grow....

20/5/2014

9 Comments

We're enjoying the simple pleasure of being in the garden all day every day lately.

There are four pairs of birds nesting - great tits and blue tits are already feeding young in the nestboxes on the end of the shed, the swallows are refurbishing last year's nest above the studio window, and wrens are making a nest in the clematis of the last two posts! Our tame robin keeps his nest a secret from us..

Things are popping up all over the place.

The Brandy Snap tulip collection lived up to expectations - gorgeous.

I'm painting canes for a sweet pea wigwam. This one is now planted with sweet pea 'Almost Black' and the deep purple and wonderfully scented 'Matucana'. Around it I've sown a dark plum coloured annual poppy and cornflower 'Black Ball'.

Can't wait to see if it works..

Last year's tulips from the black pots were replanted in the cutting beds and have given us lots of lovely bunches for the house.

This year in the pots are the delicate and beautiful 'Vintage Silk' collection from Sarah Raven who has a great eye for colour combinations.

An unlikely success as a cut flower is purple sprouting brocolli - it has lasted nearly a week in the vase (and doesn't smell cabbagey at all).

I love time spent outdoors - fresh air, birdsong, some physical work followed by a good night's sleep....a little bit of heaven.

9 Comments

Simply..an update....

19/5/2014

6 Comments

The clematis is called Freda and smells of vanilla.

The solar lights were from Sarah Raven's sale last summer.
(My husband says they look like fireflies. They remind him of his African childhood and he goes out to look at them before he goes to bed each night.)

The swallows, the midgies and my hay fever have all arrived this week.

New laptop and G Pad (by LG - stands for Life's Good!) are nearly sorted...

6 Comments

Simply..clematis by night....

18/5/2014

6 Comments

Back soon....!

Thank you for your lovely comments.

6 Comments

Simply..a little computer crisis....

10/5/2014

3 Comments

Not very important in the great scheme of things, but my laptop tonight sort of sprung open in a most alarming way....

So sorry! We may be at the repair shop for some time.

3 Comments

Simply..fun with Matisse....

9/5/2014

4 Comments

I bought a pad of bright coloured paper from the gorgeous Tate Modern shop (you can get it online here) and am having fun getting Matisse Cut Outs out of my system!

Picasso said -

'I go for a walk in the forest of Fontainebleau and I get green indigestion. I must get rid of this sensation into a picture. Green rules it. A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and visions.'

I don't really want to be Matisse of course (and neither did Andy Warhol) but I would love some of his vitality and courage!

What I've learned from doing these is what a master of composition he was...

Will you be going to the exhibition?

4 Comments

Simply..Matisse....

8/5/2014

2 Comments

The Matisse Cut Outs exhibition at Tate Modern is fantastic!

See if this 4 minute video whets your appetite.

As Picasso said

'All things considered, there is only Matisse.'

2 Comments

Simply..a Harry Potter moment....

7/5/2014

4 Comments

..on the No 91 bus.

There was a tube strike while we were in London and the first 91 bus was packed so tight the driver didn't even open the doors. Just as we were considering what to do, out of nowhere it seemed swayed a vintage London bus with 'No 91 Special Service' on the front and a large avuncular conductor leaning off the back of it waving us all on with a big smile..

I was vaguely wondering how I could use my Oyster Card on this, and did I have enough change if cash was required, as we climbed aboard and sat at the front of the top deck for the best view as it sped down to Aldwych with a ding-ding of its old fashioned bell. (Was it my imagination or was there really hardly any other traffic on the road?)

'Here we are!' cried the cheerful conductor and we all piled off (no-one had been asked to pay) and the bus swung off to rescue another bunch of mildly bemused customers. We all looked at each other for a moment as if to say 'Did that really happen?' before setting off in our different directions to carry on with our day..

It still makes me smile.

4 Comments

Simply..earning a crust....

6/5/2014

4 Comments

I'm always amazed at the way people think up new ideas for earning money. Many street artists and entertainers now offer photo opportunities for all those smartphones....

In Trafalgar Square, if you chalk flags of the world on the slabs

and leave just enough space for visitors to step carefully in among them

they will leave a coin, or two, on the flag of their country while their friends take photographs of them!

Neat uh?

Or if you dress up as a well known character, you will quickly have an audience. You can then pose a member of your audience and take up the same posture yourself for a great photo opportunity (donations welcome...)

Or if crowds of people are regularly passing your front door, you can hang up your sign (it says 'donuts')

then pop a trolley across the open doorway and sell your home made donuts for £2.50 a time (they were delicious!)

Aren't people imaginative, and enterprising?

Who thinks them up?

4 Comments

Simply..London....

5/5/2014

8 Comments

What can I say?

Mind blown, head buzzing, eyes birling - London is an exciting place.

I loved Columbia Road Flower Market - every tiny back yard a cafe, croissants and sarnies, decent coffee, quirky shops, street music by Brooke Sharkey, scent of jasmine and lilies, gardening shops, vendors cries 'Two fer a fiver!' 'Mind yer back!', the chutzpah of the woman reversing the beautiful car in (fast) and filling it with giant plants, and the colours!

Have you been here?

click to enlarge...