July 07, 2009
June 25, 2009
Pink Lilac Blooms
If I could think of one word to describe how life has been since my last post, I'd have to say floriferous. We've either been working in the gardens, tending to seedlings, or visiting nurseries all around midcoast Maine. I smelled a gardenia for the first time, bought an aloe plant that's so big I can hardly carry it, and wandered in the beautiful herb gardens at Avena Botanicals in Rockport. In my own garden I have salvias, delphiniums, columbines, and foxgloves blooming right now for the first time and my perennial beds are beginning to look the way I always imagined. "Oh, now I see what you are going for", Tony says to me..
Other than that, I've been working on my own shop and Etsy shop, updating listings to reflect my new standard size archival matts (8x10 and 11x14) which I now have available for any of my prints. This is a big change for me, I've always matted squares in square matts, but I've gotten a lot of request for standard size matts over the years so I've finally given in. Square matts will still be available as well.
I have a backlog of photos from the last few weeks that I'll be posting soon. It's such a beautiful time of year I find myself drawn outside more than inside..
May 08, 2009
May 06, 2009
May 02, 2009
April 17, 2009
Spring Comes to Maine & A Sale in My Shop
(Some photos from last year's garden - butterfly weed, st. johns wort, scabiosa, and cypress spurge.)
I'm spending most of my time in the garden these days. I have a huge perennial butterfly garden that I planted last year and I'm looking forward to seeing it's first blooms. It has many types of echinaceas, salvias, scabiosas, alliums, monardas (bee balms) and asclepias (butterfly weeds), as well as globe thistle, sea holly, anise hyssop, catmint, sedum, and others.. I grew them all from seed last year, and it's amazing seeing how big and healthy they are coming up this year. I love perennials, but this is my first experience of turning a handful of seeds into a full-fledged garden that will live for years and years.
One of my inspirations for this garden is Barbara Damrosch's butterfly garden at Four Seasons Farm in Harborside, Maine. Don't you just want to spend the afternoon under that tree? I could go on and on about their farm - she and her husband Eliot Coleman are both brilliant in their gardening expertise and are pretty much our heroes in the gardening world. Her book, The Garden Primer and his books Four Season Harvest and The New Organic Grower are held in the highest regard in our household. We are so lucky to have them so close, and spend a day on their farm a few years ago. Gardening in this climate can be tricky, but they've worked out so many techniques that they produce food year round (in MAINE), organically, and using the simplest and smartest methods I've heard of. And Barbara's beautiful gardens.. Oh wow.
(As I was checking links for Eliot Coleman books, it also appears he has a new one that came out just 2 days ago called The Winter Harvest Handbook! How's that for synchronicity. I've already placed my order.)
In my shop I'm having a 20% off discount through the end of April by entering the coupon code PAPERNSTITCH during checkout. If you haven't visited papernstitch.com yet, I highly recommend it. The selection changes monthly, so it's worth checking back often! A really unique selections of artists and designers of all types.
June 27, 2008
Spring Garden
Some new work from my spring garden. I've been experimenting with creating my own hand-painted watercolor texture layers, which I then combine with my images in Photoshop. I love the painterly look it gives the photos.
