A host of golden daffodils - at Kew Gardens

A host of golden daffodils - Broad Walk, Kew Gardens (12 March 2012)
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook, 11" x 16"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

I started to post sketches from last week and realised I'd forgotten to post this sketch from one of our trips to Kew Gardens in the middle of March.

I guess the daffodils will be coming to an end now - but the Broad Walk at Kew Gardens is an amazing sight when they are all in full bloom.  They seem to have batches staged so they start at different times.

I sketched the Broad Walk from the end of the terrace outside the Orangery while sat having a cup of tea.  It's very difficult working out how best to sketch daffodils planted like this.  Too fussy and it looks completely unreal. In the end I decided to go for large abstracted shapes of colour and then to cut in some negative shapes with darker greens

Also the title is slightly facetious.  Has anybody ever noticed the variation in the colour of daffodils and how so very often. although we might think of them all as buttery yellow, some of them actually seem to be leaning towards a lime green tinge to the yellow while others are heading towards white in colour.

This is the view from the Broad Walk from the lake end.  You can just see the Orangery - the white building - at the other end where I was sitting to sketch.

Daffodils along the Broad Walk, Kew Gardens
photo copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

The Broad Walk, Kew Gardens

The Broad Walk was laid out by Decimus Burton in 1845-1846 as part of his entrance design for the new Royal Botanic Gardens.

The Broad Walk at Kew Gardens runs from the lake next to the Palm House to the Eastern end of the Orangery and the lawn outside Kew Palace.  It's a major axis within the overall design of the layout of Kew Gardens.

In the Spring the Broad Walk plays host to the Daffodil Walk. The following os an extract from the Kew Gardens website - and includes two podcasts talking about the daffodils

In the autumn of 2000, 70,000 daffodil bulbs were planted on either side of the Broad Walk.

• Talking Kew with Annette Dalton - The Broad Walk
• Storyteller Tony Bonning: The girl Echo and the boy Narcissus

Kew Gardens - Spring Bulbs - Daffodil Walk

You can find out more about the other Spring Bulb displays at Kew Gardens via the following links

Spring bulbs

• Cherry Walk
• Holly Walk
• Princess Walk
• Glory of the Snow
• Daffodil Walk
• Crocus Carpet
• Hippeastrum
• Bluebells
• Bulb Planting

PS  According to the Kew Gardens website, Bluebells have already started flowering, beating all previously recorded opening dates at Kew Gardens.  They started flowering on 29 March. This is presumably due to the very warm March we have just had - the third warmest since records began!  The Bluebell walk is in the south west section of the garden - near the River Thames - just past this view The Thames at Kew - looking towards Richmond 12 and 15 March 2012

Links:

• More posts about sketching at Kew Gardens
• Kew Gardens - a Great Garden

The Winter Garden

The Winter Garden
11" x 16", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Continuing my series of sketches of my mother's garden in Cheshire - this is a sketch of the Winter Garden done this last weekend.

I was rather surprised by just how much colour there is in the garden in winter.  Could be something to do with what my mother has planted over the years of course!

You can see previous sketches of this Cheshire Garden on this blog in the posts listed below

• Cosmo weighs up the escape routes 08 Aug 2010
• A Cheshire garden in summer 09 Aug 2010
• A Cheshire Garden in Spring - and some new plants 01 May 2011
• A Cheshire Garden in July 15 Jul 2011

A French Sketchbook - June 2011

In June this year I travelled - with my sketchbook and brand new paints - to Provence for a new experience - a painting house party!

I stayed in the home of Julian Merrow Smith (Postcard from Provence) and Ruth Phillips (Meanwhile) while Ruth played cello at the Garsington Opera Festival and Julian learned a few of the tricks essential to his status as a new father.

Joining me in our painting house party and contributing to our group blog Four Go Painting in Provence were:

• Sarah Wimperis (Muddy Red Shoes in Cornwall),
• Robyn Sinclair (Have Dogs Will Travel from Tuscany) and
• Ronelle van Wyk (African Tapestry on the Loire)

I was there for three weeks in total with the others coming and going at various times - but with all four of us together for a couple of days in the first week

Provence is special to me because it's where I came back to art - some twenty odd years ago after a very long gap - albeit in the Luberon which is the next valley over (see The first time I went painting in Provence). It was fascinating to go back and see some of the same places again and to see how much or how little they had changed.

I've been pondering for a little while now how best to tackle recording this particular sketching trip on this blog. There were a number of issues

• First - the house got hit by lightning during a major storm and we lost all internet access. That made blogging a bit tricky (it had to be done from the bar in town and only one image at a time could be uploaded). Hence in June I focused on the group blog rather than this one- and consequently this one does not have a lot of posts about the trip. One of the features of this blog is it contains a record of my Travels with a Sketchbook and I want to remedy that for my last trip.
• Second - many of my sketches are 11"x16" and some in my A3 size Moleskine Folio Sketchbook are 16" x 22" as double page spreads. Getting these digitised is not a particularly quick exercise! Having been daunted by the challenge for a while I've solved this one by taking photographs - but may well replace these in due course with rather better scanned images.
• Third - I've always previously done trips on a day by day basis. However after a think, I think this one might be better tackled in broadly speaking a chronological order - but with much more focus on places and the type of image I was creating. Plus photos added in where appropriate.

The trip starts and finishes with my drive through France - to and from the Channel Tunnel at Calais.

It will feature an awful lot of drawings of French food (together with menu details) - which became a bit of a theme for me this trip. I'll talk a bit more about those sketches and how I did them as I get to them. They were a lot of fun to do and the foodies out there will be salivating! :)

Examples of sketching meals in French restaurants

Pen and ink and coloured pencils

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Here's a notional running order. I'll come back and add in links as these are completed. I'm going to redo some posts done in June.

I've also referenced those posts on Four Go Painting in Provence (4PP) which are relevant and will not be reproduced on this blog.

Preparation

• Learning how to paint with oils in Provence (4PP - 28th May)
• My Art Materials - or why it's a good idea to take a car! (4PP - 29th May)
• The art books are going too! (31st May)

The Journey to Provence

• The Sketchbooks are packed for Provence (8th June 2011)
• On the Road to Provence (+ the checklist) (also 4pp: The Chunnel and Northern France)
• Epernay and The Grillade Gourmande (two sketches)

The Provence Sketchbook

• Morning View from the House (sketch and photos) - plus Breakfast sketch from the terrace
• The View from Crillon Le Brave (3 sketches - including lunch)
• The Pine Tree (work in progress)
• The start of the gouache sketching (two sketches)
• Bedoin and its Market (sketch)
• Artist at work
• Dinner at Restaurant du Vieux Fours (two sketches and photos)
• My very first oil painting
• Oil sketching (three sketches)

Sketching the Terrace at Couguieux

Pen and ink and coloured pencils

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

• Sketching on the terrace at Couguieux
• Another perspective on Couguiuex (plus the initial post Saturday at Couguieux)
• Sketching at L'Isle sur la Sorgue (one sketch)
• Abbaye de Senanque and the Lavender Fields (one sketch)
• Another sketch of lunch at Crillon Le Brave (two sketches)
• Crillon Le Brave vista
• Sketching the home cooking! (three sketches)
• The Demoiselles de Coiffees - WIP (pastel sketch)
• Oil painting #4 - the view from Julian's studio window
• Revisiting Gordes (two sketches + photos)
• Sault and a hairy drive (sketch + photos)
• A Quiet Space in Provence (plus A work in progress)
• Late Sunday afternoon
• Sault and the Lavender Fields of the Nesque
• Mont Ventoux and the vines
• A View of Mont Ventoux - WIP
• Lunch at la Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence (one sketch + a lot of photos of St Remy de Provence and the restaurant)
• Sketching Van Gogh's Asylum (one sketch + photos)
• Dinner and sunset at Le Mas des Vignes, Bedoin (two sketches + photos)
• A potager in Provence
• (sketch)

The Journey to the Channel Tunnel - and three more meals in France

• Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse (two sketches)
• Lunch Chez Guy in Gevrey Chambertin (two sketches)
• Restaurant Nausicaa, Boulogne sur Mer - my last meal in France (two sketches)

A Postcard from my Walk - around the Mall Galleries

Outside the Mall Galleries in Spring
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils on Mountboard, 9.25" x 4.75"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This was my Postcard from my Walk for April which was sent to Vivien Blackburn and got posted to the Postcard blog last week - see A postcard from London - the meeting place.

I've observed that when tackling these monthly postcards, an idea for where I should do a sketch comes into my head straight away.  With Vivien it had to be the Mall Galleries because that's where we always meet up when she's in London.  Also since I always walk to the Galleries from down by the river and then walk around exhibitions three times, that's got to count as a walk!

I've always loved the view down The Mall with the huge plane trees with the really interesting bark and the colours of the dappled sunshine.

Then, of course, it's also a good way of remembering that there was a rather big event which involved The Mall last month - on the way from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace!

Kew Gardens in April

The Sackler Crossing, Kew Gardens Lake - April 2011
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in large folio Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

In the last week of April we visited the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.  We have a routine - set off mid-late morning on the tube, buy sandwiches and fruit at the Tescos outside Kew Station, get to the gardens and sit down and have lunch.

Then we start walking round to see what there is to see.  It's always different depending on the time of year - but we do like one particular bench in the garden where the Order Beds are for lunch!

We started off by surveying surveyed the new veggie patches started by this year's horticultural students.  I reckon you can tell who's going to do well during the year by how they've got their bed set up right at the beginning.  Some of them have really thought about the design and the construction and how the different elements inter-relate.  It's a bit like artists doing their prep work prior to creating a painting.

I was very keen to get a good look at the Peonies which seemed about ready to burst - although a few had got going early.

The beds in front of the Palm House were an absolute riot of colour with different varieties of tulips mixed in with other bedding plants.

You can see more photographs curated by Kew on Flickr  from those entered into the 'Signs of Spring' Photo Challenge on the Kew website - here are the chosen few in Your Kew - Signs of Spring

Then we set off to go and find the azaleas and rhododendrons which were coming into flower just as the magnolias and lilacs are coming to an end.Everywhere there were daffodils which had 'gone over' and were often horizontal as they died back.

After admiring the beginning of the azalea blooms we went and sat on our favourite seat next to the lake - where we were entertained by an absolute cacophony of bird noises and wood munching by the gardeners.  (see The Lake and waterfowl at Kew Gardens).  This is where I sat and drew the sketch at the top and wished yet again that I'd sorted out my greens before I went. I had the acids but not the olives so when posting this time I've tweaked it to try and bring out the olive colours which I should have been using!

After this it was a trek across the gardens for a cup of tea at what I I always refer to as the Pagoda Restaurant.  Passing the blossom on the trees outside the Temperate House on the way...

 
It's actually called The Pavilion Restaurant.  Food and drink have much improved of late but it's not cheap - see the new Pavilion menu (pdf)

Tea at the Pagoda Restaurant
8" x 10", pen and ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I keep trying to do this sketch every time I come and never ever get it right.  I've yet to find a really satisfactory view from the tables outside the Pavilion Restaurant.  It's all a bit too enclosed for my liking and the view of the Pagoda is not at as good as it could be.  Pity.

I actually managed to get through the shop on the way out without buying a book.  Not quite sure what went wrong there........

A Cheshire Garden in Spring - and some new plants

Last year I sketched my mother's garden in early August (see A Cheshire garden in summer and Cosmo weighs up the escape routes). This month I did two sketches.

 The first is of what the same garden looks like in Spring - sketched in the middle of April this year.

Cosmo and the white cat - in A Cheshire Garden in Spring
11.5" x 17", coloured pencils and pen and ink in Large Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

From left to right the garden includes cherry blossom, red tulips, a magnolia, an early clematis plus iris starting in the foreground plus lots and lots of fresh green leaves.

My cats as usual stake out their territory early on.  However Cosmo was rather nonplussed by a white cat who came in the garden and sat down.  Should he chase him off or make friends?  He just sat there and dithered - he's such a woos!

This second sketch is about the plants I bought to go in her front garden which needed a bit of a makeover.  They're all lined up below in the shade waiting to be planted.

I can never remember names - but I do know that there is now a very nice acer now sitting in a pot in the middle of the garden plus there are three David Austin Roses, some iris, a euphorbia and a cornus.  Lots of acid yellow green and red stems and pale yellow/cream/peachy blooms!  Plus some blue greens.  They do say that every green always goes with every other green!

New plants for the front garden
11" x 16", pen and sepia ink in Large Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Walking is still a problem

I'm getting very fed up of being confined to home while I wait for my foot to improve.  The problem is....that it isn't.  While vaguely better, it's a very long way from being OK.  This week I tried a slightly longer walk to see if stretching it might help.

It involved very slow walking and stretching the foot as I went - plus a couple of sit downs and a sketch.  Plus an awful lot of tension because I forget to breathe when I'm walking but think I'm going to fall over any second!  It's as if I'm continuously on the sharp inward yelp which occurs when in pain while forgetting to breathe out.  Almost as if I'm balancing on a tightrope with every stpe.  Very wearing.........

Anenomes in Bow
pen and ink and coloured pencils, 10 x 8" in Large Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Anyway, these are those rather nice dusky purple pink anenomes which never ever come out the right colour when you photograph them - which is a good reason for sketching them!