Art, inspiration, pigs, and butterflies

I've been pondering and playing around with design ideas and a theme for the next edition of the Useful Calendar, which I start working on shortly after the current year begins. It comes in two formats: a set of cards for desk or purse, and a year-at-a-glance poster. I focus on the cards first, making the poster only after all refinements and corrections are completed on the cards to save duplicated effort.

Most years I take the Lunar New Year animal as my theme, and for 2018, which is Year of the Dog, I even modified the layout to allow more room for illustrations—because dogs, right?

For most years prior to this I did one illustration for the cover card and put more text on the individual months, as in 2017, the Year of the Rooster:

But in 2016, feeling uninspired by the Year of the Monkey, I decided to change the theme to bees. Specifically, 12 wild (native) bees from around the world. But I didn't have any ideas about how to make more room for the illustrations, so the cards were still quite text heavy and the bees were kind of small—the original watercolors are about 4 x 6 inches; the calendar cards are 2.75" by 4.25".

I did take the bee illustrations and the research I did about them and make it into a zine, which is available in my Etsy shop, and locally at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Which brings us to 2019—Year of the Pig. I wanted to continue with the new layout allowing more room for art, which means coming up with 12 unique illustrations of pigs. I  had started to gather some ideas, trivia, and inspiration about pigs to inform the artwork, including looking for folktales about pigs and bookmarking sites with curious pig trivia, like this one about Pigcasso, a painting pig in South Africa, and another about a spot in the Bahamas called Pig Beach.

But, as fun as those discoveries might be, none of it was inspiring me to start doing illustrations of pigs. I mean, even with the added room for artwork, it's still got to be quite small, and a picture of a swimming or painting pig kind of needs some context, and I still needed to come up with 10 more unique ways to depict pigs. It just wasn't working for me.

So I asked myself, what would I like to illustrate the 2019 calendar with? 

When I am pondering ideas I tend to stare out the window. And when I look out the window I see a foot of snow in the middle of April. So, naturally, I think about my garden, and summer ... and butterflies.

Question mark butterfly, perched on the wood frame of my kitchen garden last summer.

And it just so happens that I've already got a lot of butterfly photos that I've taken in my own garden.

A slightly tattered tiger swallowtail visiting hydrangea in an alley near Minnehaha Falls park

 I'll also do illustrations by referencing a variety of photos on the web to put together a generic composite image, such as for this watercolor of a nonspecific azure butterfly:

So now that I've settled on a theme, the next step is choosing colors (one of them will certainly be butterfly blue) and fonts. See my next post about my design inspirations and ideas here.

Some of my illustrations end up on note cards, book plates, and stickers, which you can see in my Etsy shop, also called Sharon's Compendium.

How wildlife rehab, craft beers, and a hand-bound journal are all connected

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a representative of Duluth-based Wildwoods Wildlife Rehabilitation center to see if I would consider donating an item for their silent auction fundraiser, which is happening this Saturday evening, June 7.

After a quick check to assure myself that it was all legit, I said I'd be happy to send along one of my respite boxes (aka meditation kits/mindfulness boxes, or cool stuff in a box for grown-ups), as requested.

But then I said I thought it would make sense to include some boxed sets of my animal notecards, which have animal facts on the backs. So I offered to include a few of those, too.

And then when she said the event included tastings of craft beers, I said, oh, well, then I should send you a journal made from a craft beer box. I didn't have one from the specific brands she knew they were featuring (mostly because many of our terrific craft beers don't yet have bottling operations, so, no six-packs). But I rummaged through my collection and found a box from Lift Bridge Farm Girl, a Belgian-style pilsner from Lift Bridge Brewing of Stillwater.

I thought it would be appropriate because Duluth has a lift bridge too. Funny thing is, I don't think we've actually tried this beer yet ourselves; I must have pilfered the box from one of our local sources  of beer, wine and other libations—they make the empty six-pack boxes available for people to buy an assortment of single bottles from a variety of craft beers, and sometimes I rummage through the boxes and ask if I can take a few home.

I used the secret Belgian binding, which allowed me to incorporate more of the design by using the black-and-white strip on one side for the spine. (And it is a Belgian-style brew, after all.) I used the other strip and a piece from the bottom, which credits the sources of the photographs, to make tags.  

All the cover pieces are glued to thick fiber board for sturdiness. I cut pieces from a vintage map of Minnesota for the end papers (featuring Duluth, of course).

And I put my trademark library pocket inside the back cover, with a knock-off of a library card inside, providing the details of this journal (how many pages, the materials used, etc.)

As I was packing everything up in a medium Priority Mail box, I decided to toss in a few packs (sets of 18) of my bookplates, which also feature some of my animal drawings.

And all of that is now on its way to Duluth for the event this Saturday. 

Best wishes!

A Walk Below the Falls on a Spring Morning

It was just a few days ago that the nights here were so balmy that we left the windows open all night for the first time this year. I awoke early Tuesday morning, feeling the humidity in the air, hearing the birds, sensing the sunlight peaking under the partially raised shade of our east window. When it became clear to me that I wasn't going back to sleep, I decided to get up. It was about 6:30.

Up early on a spring morning, I decided to go for a walk. (And not knowing that soon the wintry chill would return yet again—I awoke this morning to see snow on the green grass. Yes, on May 3rd.)

We live just a half mile from Minnehaha Falls, so I walked down to admire the waterfall's abundance fed by the melt down of all the snow we got in April (more than in January!). 

I descended the many stone steps to the creek below the falls, which leads to the Mississippi River.

Spring is getting a late start around here this year, so there's not much color yet other than the stems of the red-twigged dogwood (seen on the left above).

But as I continued along the path and then the boardwalk, I saw a welcome smattering of green. Much of the ground surrounding the creek here is marshlike, and so there is a boardwalk to allow visitors to keep their feet dry and not disturb the soft soil, where bog plants like this skunk cabbage thrive.

I don't recall ever seeing skunk cabbage in bloom, so this siting was a real treat.

This stand of bloodroot in bloom was also a pleasant surprise.

I was alone for most of the time, except for the songbirds and this small hawk; we have two species of small hawks here in the city, Cooper's and sharp shinned, but I didn't see this one well enough to tell which it was. It was keeping a good watch on me, though. 

When I reached the end of the boardwalk, the trail up ahead was muddy and rutted, so I decided it was time to head back home. I did cross paths on my way back with a young couple out for a morning stroll, he with a cup of coffee in hand. Other than those two and me, there was nobody down by the lower creek on this warm spring morning, and no sound other than the creek and the birds.

I walked home from the park a couple of blocks on city sidewalks, waiting for a gap in the morning traffic before crossing 46th Street, up another half block, and in through my front door to make breakfast and tea. I'd been gone an hour but had only walked a couple of miles in that time. Yet it seemed as though I had been so much farther away.

Flowers and flour

The autumn clematis, shown here in September, is still green in November.

Flowers in the house didn't happen this month, apparently because of everyone's preoccupation with flour of a different sort and a certain feasting holiday. I would have been late to the party anyway, for much the same reason.

Still, I have found the monthly floral blog crawl to be a nice motivator to do some sort of botanical arrangement in my house, as well as an opportunity to feast my eyes on and be inspired by the floral and artistic talents of the other participants, so I paid a visit to a local florist and made a couple of arrangements anyway.

My son's apartment is just one block from Roger Beck Florist, so when I dropped him off yesterday after he was done borrowing the car, I stopped in. I picked up a disparate assortment of elements, and I think the nice fellow helping me had his understandable doubts about their combining into a pleasing display, because I intended to supplement them with what I could find still in my yard and garden.

In fact, when I got home and started playing around with the blue and white mop head hydrangea, sprig of rose hips, purple seeded eucalyptus, tall green-purple foliage thingy (protea, maybe?), and branch of curly willow, I quickly surmised that they weren't all going to go together no matter what else I introduced into the mix.

So I added the willow to my existing front step urn.




The rose hips and mystery foliage branch, plus a few more quirky black orbs from the black-eyed Susans in my yard, helped fill out the small gilded pail in my front porch, which I had filled with sand to hold the cuttings from the too-long dogwood when I made the front step urn display.

The porch bouquet

For the indoor display, I cut a whole bunch of lavender from the back garden, which was still looking perky and smelling wonderful, and several tangly leafy stems of the autumn clematis, which appears to be largely undaunted by the several frosts we've had so far.

The hydrangea proved a disappointment, since it had wilted by this morning, so into the compost it went. I had cut the stem and put it in fresh water, so I'm not sure what the problem was. I will admit the mop heads are not my favorite hydrangeas, I much prefer our native Annabel and the panicles and lacecaps. Maybe it knew I didn't think much of it and went into a sulk.

The resulting arrangement is all foliage and no flowers, but I rather like it. The afternoon sunlight was a bit harsh when I took this photo, but when the sun isn't shining in on this spot, it's too dark to photograph it at all. Maybe next time I want to photograph something on the buffet we'll have a cloudy day, and then the afternoon light will be just right.

Baby Blues

I was out in the backyard today when tiny pale blue wings fluttered by. I had my camera handy, so I grabbed it and took some shots as the lilliputian butterfly flitted about among the white clover in my lawn. I know there are a few types of blue butterflies in Minnesota, all of them with a wingspan no bigger than about an inch, and so easy to miss unless you're keyed in to spotting pretty little things. Maybe I'm even a little obsessed with them; I think they're adorable and will make a point of planting their favorite flowers to encourage them to stick around.

All the blues are small; in fact, the tiniest butterfly in the world is the pygmy blue, native to the American Southwest, according to Stokes Butterfly Book. Its wingspan is less than a half inch.

The upper side of the wings is the blue part, a pale almost lavender color that you only glimpse as it flutters about.  This guy would not spread his wings when he perched on the clover, so all I could get is a shot of the underside of the folded wings, which is more silver, with distinctive spots. But that's how you identify them, so he was actually being helpful. See the hint of orange in the two splotchy spots near the base of the wings (you should be able to click on the second photo to get a larger view; it doesn't look as orange in these photos as it did in real life), and the two rows of black spots with white margins, and (this is really hard to spot) the really tiny threadlike "tail" by the not-quite-orange spots? All those markings identify this guy as a male Eastern tailed blue. (And you thought I was being sexist, didn't you?) The females don't have the orange spots and aren't as blue.

It won't be hard to provide both nectar and larval plants for these and the other blues—silvery blue and spring and summer azures are also found in Minnesota (and far beyond, of course). They all like legumes, such as clover, vetch and alfalfa, for both caterpillar food and nectar. The silvery blue also likes lupine and dandelions, and the spring azure goes for dogwood, wild cherry, and meadowsweet. (I believe that's the wild spirea, S. alba, although some sites that came up on a quick search say it's filipendula; that's why I often find common plant names a bit annoying, even if they are more poetic than their scientific counterparts).

Eastern tailed blues also like to take nectar from goldenrod, asters, fleabane, white sweetclover (that's our native clover) as well as the Dutch white clover often growing in lawns and pictured here. Did you notice how many of those plants are common weeds that many people work very hard to get rid of?

It's good timing on the butterfly's part, since I am in the process of planning the gardens; a delicate reminder to remember all the butterflies that may find their way to my yard, and not just the big showy ones (I already have a few species of native liatris planted to please the monarchs).

A poppy pops up most unexpectedly, and other reports from the late summer garden

I went outside to bring out some trash this morning and was surprised by this sweet little poppy growing amongst the daisies and thistles next to the sidewalk. It's at the edge of the area that is slated to become our kitchen garden, and I am planning a mixed border, including self-sowing annuals, to run along the outside of the as-yet-to-be-installed picket fence, to attract beneficial insects and serve as a cutting garden for bouquets, as well as to simply look pretty. And here's a cheerful reminder to include poppies in that mix!

I have no idea how it got here, of course. I am pretty certain there were no poppies in any part of the garden last year (though it is possible I overlooked them or forgot). At first I thought the seeds may have come from the compost—mine or someone else's—but I don't think it's breadseed poppy (P. somniferum), that's usually taller and most likely a "single" blossom, not a flouncy double like this one. Perhaps it came from someone's wildflower mix, but how it got here remains a mystery. Birds? A squirrel or chipmunk? One of our many nonhuman gardeners of happenstance, surely.

The abundance of rain during this heat wave has certainly taken the edge off, at least for the plants. The lavender seems to be thriving, as you can see here. I envisioned something of a mini hedge of lavender when I planted these four earlier this summer. Even the most hardy lavender is only marginally so in Minnesota, though, so it remains to be seen if it will come back in the spring. It is currently on the west side of the garage, but I am thinking of moving it once I have some of the other gardens prepared. But digging new garden beds is not a project for 90-degree days!

The black-eyed susan and garden phlox are just coming into bloom. They, too, are slated to be moved, probably to the south side of the house. My current "plan" (more like an idea than anything so organized as a plan, really) is to have a wide strip of tall sun-loving perennials, both native and cultivated, all along the south side, except where the faucet and air conditioner are. I need to build up the soil a bit there, to get that gentle slope away from the house, and then plant deep-rooted plants that won't require supplemental watering most of the time, but will seek the moisture way below the surface. I'm envisioning something of a cottage/prairie garden hybrid, with some of those taller prairie forbs and grasses to the back, and the not-quite-so-tall cultivated perennials in front of them. Or something like that. That's a September project, though, when it's safe to move the peonies, which are the only plants (other than weeds) growing there now.

It definitely helps to be in no big hurry to get these various gardens installed, because my ideas have evolved over the past year as I've observed what's going on all around the property, where the sun shines most, where the rain water tends to puddle, and so on.