06.11.09

California Wildflowers and More Drawings

Posted in Uncategorized, gardening, hobbies at 10:00 pm by Administrator

Today was a long day. . . Still kinda gloomy weather, so that got me on a slow start.  Just barely finished eating dinner since we didn’t get home until about 8-ish.  One of the things we did today was visit the California Native Plant Nursery in Sun Valley.  We learned about it from the Chumash Herbal Medicine meeting we attended last Tuesday night in Santa Monica.  Will probably share a little about that later as they did give us a free book called Estanislao–Warrior, Man of God.  According to the write-up, Estanislao may have been the inspriation for stories of Zorro.  But more later after I read the book. . . For now, here are a few shots from the California Native Plant Nursery.

Shame on me, I don’t know what the name of this plant is, but I just thought it was beautiful.  Another plant I think is beautiful is the California poppy shown below.  Pictures just don’t do these flowers justice because they are so much more vibrant in real life.

They also had white poppies, which looked quite different from the California poppy and was much larger.  It reminded me of the white and purple poppies we saw in Turkey that were being grown for medicinal purposes, although the flowers in Turkey were even bigger than these.

Obviously, the above is a close up of the white poppy.  Below is a shot of what the whole plant looks, which is much larger than the California poppy.

And here’s a picture of how they collect some of the seeds.  I thought this was interesting, since I had never thought of how they managed seed collecting.  Apparently, they cover the seed pods with nylon or cheese cloth.  This catches the seeds instead of just letting them fall down to the ground.

And finally, here’s one of the plants I got today.  We actually purchased a few other types, but this one is for my little space in the backyard.  Generally I like to just take cuttings from other plants, but since I’ve never seen this one before, I decided to fork out the money for it.  Isn’t it funky?  It’s a succulent, and it kind of looks like string beans, heheh. . .

The other thing we did today was continue with our drawings.  Here’s a shot of Aaron and my drawings next to each other.  Aaron’s is on the left, and mine is on the right.

Okay, so Aaron is proving to be the better artist between the two of us!  I think his proportions are better than mine, and also his looks more “serious,” while mine looks kinda cartoon-ish, ha ha ha!  Well, he used a “B” pencil, while I used a 4B.  So I suppose that could make a difference with details, but that doesn’t explain his better proportions.  So perhaps the next drawing I’ll try using a “B”, at least.  Or perhaps I’ll used Kim’s suggestion and use the different pencils as needed?  Sounds good to me.  And if you’re reading this, Kim, thanks for explaining how to use the charcoal pencils.  Makes plenty of sense, and hope to eventually try it once we get some practice in.

Anyway, here’s a close up of Aaron’s still life.

And don’t laugh, but here’s my “cartoon” version, ha ha ha. . .  Something about it looks heavy-handed to me.

My 15-year-old son is out doing me in drawing. . . I’ll have to practice behind his back, heheheh, so I can catch up. . .  Or better yet, maybe I should just peek over his shoulders when he’s drawing so I can learn from him. . .
Anyway, here’s another still life I drew yesterday.  Aaron didn’t like this set up, so he quit drawing and I have only my picture here.  He said he didn’t like the designs on the pottery.  They were too distracting.  I continued to draw, but realized he was right that the pottery designs distracted from practicing with shading.  And so I stopped drawing after a while.  Here’s how far I got on it.

And that’s it for now.  The family is playing Apples to Apples, and I want to join in, so toodles for now!

Marlakins

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