MORE MUSHROOMS

 

My Belarussian friend has a knack of finding the best mushrooms thanks to her childhood spent in the forests of eastern Europe.  These boletus were found in a forest in Brittany and were delicious to eat.  I had a lot of fun scribbling with my inktense blocks, spritzing with water and then detailing with the pencils.

AUTUMN COLOURS IN BRITTANY

 

Our garden is full of wonderful autumn colours but they are mainly on the flowers rather than the trees.  The azaleas have started to bloom a couple of months early and the hydrangea is holding on to the old flowers now tinged with maroon and mauve.  It's surprising how many more shrubs have carried on flowering long after they should have gone into hibernation.

WOOD PIGEON'S EGG

 

The other day while walking in the woods I picked up this pure white egg and identified it as a Wood pigeon.  The birds must have been encouraged by the lovely autumn weather to have another brood of chicks. I copied the bird picture from my field guide as they are rather elusive, always hiding in the treetops!

EVENING SUN

 

After a hard day's work in the garden we finally relaxed with a cool drink in the house.  I noticed how the low evening sun caught the hairy edges of the geraniums growing up just outside the window and tried to capture the image in white gel pen and coloured pencils.

LACECAP HYDRANGEA

 

Perros-Guirec where I live is famous for it's hydrangeas and this year they are fabulous, the colours seem to be deeper and there seem to be many more blooms on the bushes. In my garden I have a couple of bushes of the lacecaps which are rarer here than the usual mopheads but I love them for their dainty centres and the way the colour changes from a deep cobalt blue through mauve to pink almost before your eyes!

A WEEK IN A LOG CABIN

 

We've just spent a week staying in a log cabin in England with my mother in law.  The site was set on the hills behind Hastings in East Sussex in the south of England.  We were close to the edge of the hillside with these tall trees growing up from lower down the slope and we could just see the sea in the hazy distance. How lovely it was to wake up to the sound of birdsong and to watch the squirrels and rabbits playing and feeding just outside our windows.

Courting Pigeons

 

We've just spent a week camping in the Loire valley and our first stop was at Saumur where the campsite was on an island in the middle of the river with lovely views of the chateau. Being a nature sketcher I found the smaller views much easier to draw than the turrets of the castle!

BOUGAINVILLA AND PINK PEPPERS

 

I'm always on the lookout for native plants and flowers when we go on holiday and I found the bougainvilla quite stunning as it tumbled over walls and up the front of houses in Tenerife, in all shades of red, crimson and pink.  The pink pepper trees had a few berries left although the gardeners were busy pruning while we were there.

A Tame Parrot

 

We've just returned from a fortnight's holiday in Tenerife, soaking up a bit of winter sun.  The hotel we stayed in put on some entertainment every night and one evening we were treated to a show of performing parrots.  There were 5 different birds and this one was my favourite as he sat on his perch all the evening jumping up and down and squawking from time to time to try and attract attention while the other birds did their tricks.  He only performed a simple trick which I can't remember now but I so enjoyed his antics and his wonderful colouring I had to draw him from memory the next day.

CUP OF FLOWERS

 

I collected a few spring flowers from my garden, Mimosa, Daffodils, Primroses and Celandine to put in my pretty pottery wine goblet.  Such lovely shades of yellow complementing the mauve glaze on the cup.

Tiny red mushroom

 

I have had a lot of fun lately, collecting and drawing mushrooms but this one was so tiny, about the size and colour of a Yew berry, that I decided that it was better to photograph it.  I had to get right down in the grass with my camera, giving my granddaughters a lot of amusement, to be able to take the picture!  See more mushrooms on my blog.

Woodland mushroom

 

I found another beauty on my walk down the lane this week, nestling in the long grass under a clump of trees.  I got out my field guide, bought 35 years ago when our favourite Sunday walk with the children was mushroom hunting in the Surrey hills, to identify it.  I hope I've got it right but please do correct me if anyone knows better!

Shaggy Ink Caps

 

I found this little group rather close to the road so I had to take them home to stop them being crushed by cars or people walking by.  Of course they were drawn within minutes of getting home!  The tall one is nearly a foot tall and the ink was dripping all the time I carried them and as I drew.   I'm addicted to drawing on this tinted paper, isn't it strange you can have something in store for years then all of a sudden you find a use for it!

Early mushrooms

 

 

 

Summer has turned into autumn quite quickly here in north Brittany with misty mornings and plenty of mushrooms putting their heads above the grass. It's such a pleasure to stroll down our lane with the lovely fragrances of leaves and earth and to see the spiders busy with their webs and the trees laden with chestnuts and acorns ready to drop.  These beautiful parasol mushrooms were on top of the bank opposite our house and I couldn't resist bringing them in to draw!

 

Green woodpeckers in the garden

 

We have a family of green woodpeckers in the garden who love to feed on the ants in the lawn. They often make quite large holes in their search for food but they are welcome to eat as many as they can as I don't really want the ants invading the house.  The youngsters are slowly learning to copy their parents but this one has a habit of sitting in the sycamore tree and squawking for attention! On a rainy morning he sat there looking so sorry for himself sheltering under the leaves I just had to draw him alongside a feather I found on the drive.

Autumn's treasures

 

My good friend Luba has only recently started gardening and she is delighted with her efforts at growing vegetables especially pumpkins.  This one is only the size of a grapefruit and has hardly enough flesh to eat so I had a lot of fun drawing it instead!

BUTTERFLY INVASION

 

I spent a very happy couple of hours on Saturday afternoon watching all the butterflies flocking to feed on our buddlea. I counted at least 6 different species and since then a swallowtail has also arrived.  The white butterflies in particular fly around in groups fluttering all over the bush and surrounding area.

A spotted woodpecker feather

 

I don't often see the spotted woodpecker in my garden although he only lives next door but he left me this lovely feather to draw!

LUBERON LAVENDER FIELDS

 

We've just returned from our summer trip to Provence where we found hot weather and lovely landscapes to sketch. We stayed on a campsite in the 'Colorado de Rustrel' an area of former ochre quarries.  The red, yellow and white rocks and cliffs were stunning to see and I was in sketching heaven! This was the view from our dining table under the tall pine and oak trees.

 

 

One afternoon I strolled out of the camp gate and up the hill a short distance and this is what I found.  The sketch can't do justice to the phenomenal red of the rocks, paths and vistas. I had to sit carefully on a plastic bag otherwise my clothes would have been red too! 

 

SILVER BIRCHES

 

During our English trip we stayed on a campsite near the junction of the M25 and M23 in Surrey.  It's hard to believe when you're surrounded with beautiful trees and bluebell woods you're in the busiest part of the country!  I had a wonderful time drawing everything I could see from our pitch in my home made mi-tientes sketchbook.  There's more on my blog http:// valeriejaneg.blogspot.fr