prickly pear bloom

Our prickly pear cacti are slowly putting on a show this year. Most years, we might see only one or two flowers. I used watercolor, gouache, and a touch of colored pencil in this sketch, which turned out duller than planned.

succulents & prickly pear

I sketched these pots in our front garden on Monday — then non-art life stuff kept me from finishing until today. But then, I prefer my art slow and drawn out over time anyway . . .

The second photo shows only half of our mass of prickly pear cacti. All of this grew from three pots bought a couple of years ago.

a bit of gneiss

On the long drive into Inks Lake State Park we saw these beautiful “island” outcroppings of gneiss (pronounced “nice”) containing a variety of cacti, ferns, moss, and lichen. More bits of gneiss were throughout the park itself.

recent sketches

Early one morning a couple of weeks ago, I took my corgi outside and found these gorgeous white blooms. Last year, the turban-shaped cactus only put out a few babies. I took a photo of the blooms . . . and the next day they were gone.

The tiny sketch of apple blossoms was also done from a photo; apples have since developed. This week I was trimming back the purple basil to dry some for next winter; two leaves fell off so I sketched them “live”. I didn’t get around to painting them right away . . . and our sneaky cat, Scottie Dubh, must have eaten them! So the color is from memory.

growing prickly babies

This year’s crop of tiny prickly pear cactus “pom poms” seem to all be developing into full pads. The first year the tiny sprouts just fell away. These photos represent maybe a quarter of the beds in front of our barndo — all from 6 small potted plants planted 4 years ago. They obviously like it here! We broke several pads off to start new beds on either side of our driveway entrance.

another tiny sketch

Sketched from a photo, this shows the very beginning of our aloe vera flowering. Soon the whole length of stalk was filled with yellow “petals”, now gone.

The second photo is of a very tiny clipboard I found on Etsy — it helps hold on to these 1 3/4 x 2 1/2” pieces of watercolor paper. The craftsman sells this and other sketching paraphernalia under the name “bluestarcraftsmx”.

The last photo shows the plant as it looked 3 1/2 weeks ago.

whhhaaat?

This is what we woke up to early this morning — my Corgi, Butters, didn’t know what to do! Several times, she ran out in a semi-circle then ran back to the front porch. This first photo was taken when she got brave enough to venture further away.

Snow used to be a rare occurrence around here; recent years have brought more. A couple of years ago, we lost a lot of prickly pear cacti. They can handle the cold temps but we didn’t know to brush the snow off of the pads. As it melts, the pads keep drinking it in and eventually drink themselves to death.

On a side note, that rock form on the lower right is the Williamson family “camel rock” (I have always thought it looked more like a plesiosaur, like Nessie in Loch Ness). The rock was found on Bill’s great grandparent’s farm in SE Kansas — and has been located at family homes ever since. Many generations have had their photos taken sitting on “her” back! So of course she came with us when we moved to Texas.

new succulents

This large container once held a small bay leaf with several years strong growth — until an unexpected cold snap killed it. This year we replaced the bay with three new succulents.

The gray pedestal was found in front of our barn, completely hidden by an overgrown lantana. Seemed like a good spot for this container when we replaced the lantana with prickly pear cactus.

some cacti

These are some of the cacti growing in front of our barn home among some large rocks. It’s funny how sometimes the greens are yellowish and sometimes a cool blueish green. The Peruvian apple cactus is actually much smaller than it appears on the sketchbook page, as it is very young. But it will eventually tower over everything, including us!