Tulips after five days

Possibly the last of the tulips, we’ll see what happens. Some of the flowers have opened a bit more, as much as shop-bought ones ever do, and the leaves are beginning to lose some of their strength, which is a shame but actually makes the shapes more interesting. Also, being the third of three paintings in fairly quick succession I noticed I was being a little more adventurous with the colour here and there, bringing in some quinacridone magenta in the flowers and adding some prussian blue in the leaves. I’ve just noticed I seem to have lost a stem somewhere, but never mind!

Not quite the end of Summer

08-31 Barrow of Pansies

The Meteorological Office tell us ( a little too eagerly I feel) that as far as they are concerned the first of September is the end of Summer.

Well, excuse me, but I think the end of Summer will be whenever Nature decides. There is still a lot of this Summer to be enjoyed before we consign it to the history books and we should not wish it, or our lives, away any faster than they already are by our twenty-first century thinking.

Although I am looking forward to Autumn and all that it brings, I am happy to wait a few more weeks and enjoy a more gradual changeover of seasons.