Fighting a Ghost

Foxgloves painted in my cottage garden this afternoon

To be completed

She is there every time I paint a flower and she won't be ignored which at times can be so frustrating. The botanical artist that I used to be will never leave me. She is like a ghost in my soul that keeps making an appearance, always when I least expect her too. 

The gardening bug has hit me and as it wasn't raining ( finally) today I caught up with a few tasks in our cottage garden. The flower borders fall on my shoulders to work on as my husband can be over enthusiastic at removing what he thinks are weeds, when in fact they are seedlings. One year he "over enthusiastically" removed all my fox glove seedlings and I was completely heartbroken. As I love painting them.

But this year the seedlings are safe as I  am caring for them again. But I have to admit, I am getting a little carried away. It started with my seeing nettles and reading about their uses. I remember my Grandfather, years ago when I was a child, making nettle feed to feed his plants. He used mainly natural products with very little bought from a garden centre as gardeners often do today. He collected his own seeds, grew his own plants and created his own fertiliser. So as nettle feed seemed very easy to make I made some and my plants are now looking fantastic.  They do indeed love it.

But I didn't stop there. 

Next, I purchased seed packets and now I have trays of seedlings that will all need planting. I did carefully thin them out and transplant them. They too look fabulous.  But where on earth does this new addiction of  doing everything from scratch leave time for my painting and writing. Especially as I am working on a new book at the moment. 

You may well ask " How does she find the time?"

I don't know!

All I do know is that I wake at the crack of dawn each day to see what the weather is like. If it is fine I spend an hour or two in the garden and from there I bring inspiration and my happy mood into my studio to paint or write. Listening to bird song while I garden really does make me feel so energised and cheerful. 

Yesterday I worked on my new book all day until late in the evening and was so pleased with the chapter I had completed. It read back so beautifully this afternoon.

After gardening today I wandered around my garden taking photographs in sunlight and the first flowering foxglove caught my attention. I knew I had to paint it , there and then. Hence the painting above because I quickly raced to get my art equipment to paint outside . I eagerly began capturing the sunlight on the upper buds of the foxglove plant in my garden. I loved the start of the painting. It was full of energy and life but there came that moment when the rigger brush was in my hand and the ghost of my "artist past" appeared. I had to fight her off  as she beckoned me to consider adding every single dot in every single foxglove bell shape.

I do like the above watercolour study but I have a far more exciting foxglove wash just waiting for me to paint flowers on top of it tomorrow. But when I do paint tomorrow I am hoping the "botanical ghost" of yesteryear doesn't appear and persuade me to add too much detail. She is pretty strong minded that ghost ,and I have a constant battle with her.

I started my art career as a botanical artist and I thought I had left that ghost way behind me . But she seems to have found me again and she won't let me go.

Lets' see who wins tomorrow. The ghost or me!

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