Day: May 6, 2021

Nature’s Palette

Nature's Palette

It’s that time of year again when I realise that I need to improve my plant drawing so I’ve just started Sarah Simblet’s Botany for the Artist and Nature’s Palette, introduced by Patrick Baty. Nature’s Palette was published last month to celebrate the bicentenary of the publication of Scottish artist Patrick Syme’s expanded edition of Werner’s Nomencclature of Colours. Syme suggests a system of 110 standard colours in relation to zoology, botany, mineralogy and anatomy which include ‘Siskin Green’, ‘Flax-flower Blue’ and ‘Gallstone Yellow’.

It’s a book that I need to browse through in a good light, to appreciate the difference between ‘Snow White’ and ‘Skimmed-milk White’, ‘Olive/Clove Brown’ and ‘Liver Brown’.

Howgate Wonder

blossom

Breakfast time: A female squirrel tries several times to climb the bird feeder pole but soon works out that she’s not going to get beyond the baffle. She climbs one of the cordon apple trees to assess the possibilities then climbs onto the hawthorn hedge and leaps across.

She’d make short work of our plastic bird feeders so I’ve relocated the pole a few feet further from the hedge, making sure that it’s not too close to the clothes prop holding up the washing line, a route that we’ve seen squirrels use to get to the feeders in the past.

blossom

Afternoon: A few honey bee-sized bees are continually visiting the blossoms of our Howgate Wonder double-cordon apple, sometimes chased off by a second bee or by a small, dark, cigar-shaped hoverfly.

Golden Spire, apple beginning to form

The blossom has now gone from our single cordon Golden Spire and the apples are just beginning to form.

Golden spire