May Flowers

Another late start to my morning. Feeling a bit lazy, drinking my tea and working on the computer before I actually get to work on things. I have a custom order for a shore bird painting and I'm going to work on that today. My panel is prepared with gesso. I gesso and sand layer after layer on my masonite to prepare it to accept the oil paint.

Earlier this morning I went into the backyard garden to shoot a few photos of my gorgeous flowers all in bloom. I'm still waiting for the hydrangeas and lions tail to start blooming. I'll share those when they do. I think the lions tail is a bit later in the season to bloom.

Yes, I've got some pink carnations in my garden. They come back year after year and spread quite rapidly. I cut back a ton of them because they don't look good once it's done flowering. The foliage tends to just lay on the ground and it's not very pretty but I do like the flowers.

I saw this bug on the yarrow and had to look it up. It's a lygus pratensis and not a good insect for the garden. I'm going to have to find something to get rid of these. I've read that spraying is not usually effective on getting rid of them.

In case you're wondering what this flower is, it's a fuchsia and it's planted in a huge beautifully ornate antique cast iron urn. Next time I'll take a photo of the urn so you can see.

Many years ago I did this square terra cotta pot. It has a different mosaic bird on each side that I did from old broken tiles. One of my favorites.

These are the Gerbera daisies planted in the mosaic pot and they come back year after year. I don't do too much to them either. Very low maintenance flowers.