bonnie's yellow plant

my good friend and awesome gardener, bonnie, introduced me to her jerusalem sage last week. i can't believe i have never seen this plant before!! i instantly fell in love with the full, bushy shape of the plant, the wonderful yellow color and the amazing shapes of the blooms and pods. it reminds me of a cross between a lion's tail plant and a yellow shrimp plant--both of which i absolutely love. along with painting, my gardening urge is also being revived. it is amazing what divorce can do to you and how long it can take to let yourself love the things again that are most dear to you. all in good time i suppose. you can definitely be looking out for a painting of these beauties in the near future.

love

i have found my painting mojo again, thank goodness. it really is the love of my life and i am so glad to be back in action. painting for me is like meditation, a different kind of meditation but still, i find it grounding and it makes me feel just a little bit saner and relaxed when i am doing it on a regular basis. here are a couple of my most recent gifts from the universe.

Verbena, #9 Jefferson Square, Austin, Texas 78731

These are pictures from one of my very favorite stores in Austin, which also happens to be my place of employment! I'm really not biased though, the minute I walked into the store I loved it and immediately applied for a job. It's worked out wonderfully since then and if you live in the Austin area and haven't been here you must visit. We do floral designs for delivery and weddings and have an amazing boutique shop packed with all kinds of goodies... here are a few samples.

glass sea urchin vases

little wooden hands

horn bangles

Tokyo Milk perfumes and bath products

recycled juice glasses, or adorable little vases

faves in austin

this post is for a good friend who may be moving here and hasn't been to barton springs, i figured some pics of the cool, clear water would be tempting--even if it is closed for the season.... always something to look forward to for next summer!

another one of my fav things is flip happy crepes just off barton springs and lamar where i will take my sister when she comes to town for a visit--something i can barely wait for! it will be an eating festival for sure!! yum! this was the peanut butter something... whatever it's called it was delicious! sugar coma for sure.

and some shots of the cute trailer and colorful picnic tables.

keep austin weird

we have a saying for our fabulous city here, "keep austin weird" so i thought i would post some of the stranger things i have photographed lately. these first couple aren't weird at all, just cool things i saw in shop windows downtown on 2nd street.

these hanging paper decorations were super cool--extra fancy origami.

and then there was the rat... ha ha!! i couldn't resist. but i think it's really a stuffed rat. yikes. i wonder if it was someone's pet?

then everyone's fav animal, the lovely armadillo... these are outside Threadgills cast in concrete. i actually think they are really cool looking.

bird of paradise

here is a photo and some close-ups of a commission i just finished painting, not my usual kind of subject matter so it was interesting and different to do. now that i am looking at it unattached i realize it needs more detail in the petals of the blooms, and i would like to add some very subtle leaf textures to the background. we'll see when i will get to this, let it be a lesson in discipline, something i tend to lack.

datura dreamland

i had to dedicate one whole post to the amazing datura plants i found at the botanical gardens. i have never seen such an enourmous group of them before, it was really amazing. they were slightly tricky to grow in new orleans, for me at least. anyway, they are one of my favorite blooms(actually, the double one with the purple exterior and white interior is my very fav). enjoy!

bat face

ok, how funny is this??? i always thought i got the "bat-faced" cuphea before, but no. not until i got home yesterday and looked through all my pictures and saw this tiny face looking at me did i really, truly get the name!! how funny! i love it.

anyone who knows me well knows that i am obsessed with bats and am super happy to be living in a bat city with a bunch of other crazy, bat-obsessed people. so here's to austin, being a cool bat-friendly city and all.

these were blooms on one of the water plants in the front pond at the gardens, i love the contrast of the very yellow-lime green stem in the background next to the lavender and purples.

and i really will never tire of looking at the passion flower blooms, so very geometric and amazingly complex. i wish the red one had been blooming as well, it was full of buds but no blooms.

eggplant blooms are another of my favorite flowers, just so pretty and sweet

cactus thingy. cool and spikey. don't you love how technical i am with the names??

zilker botanical gardens

in between the mosquitos eating me for breakfast i managed to get some decent shots at the botanical gardens. here are the water scenes, taken at the front pond at the entrance and the koi in the japanese gardens. more later.

a life question

WHAT WOULD YOU ATTEMPT TO DO IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD NOT FAIL?

scary thought. my list is way too long for my liking. about to change all that though.

patio

as promised, here are some pics of my patio. difficult to photograph because of the small size of it and i wanted to get my water dragon in there--gotta have a good balance: water and dry right? yes, it's all about balance. yin and yang. black and white. it's all there...

some shots of my new pots. i really love the complementary color scheme, especially since the plants are a bluish green-excellent combination. makes me want to paint.

i couldn't resist putting in this shot of the aloe with the afternoon sun casting nice shadows on it and really highlighting the different shades of greens and blues and accenting the little spikes that add so much interest to the shape of the leaves.

Zilker botanical gardens cacti sale

i found exactly what i was looking for at the plant sale--great agaves and as an added bonus an aloe and a cute little cactus. i spent more money than i planned to but my patio is now beautiful and who can put a price on beauty??? i hung the finishing touch after it started getting dark out so i will post pics of the whole patio tomorrow. below is the aloe, little did i know they came this spikey and dangerous looking!

aloe peglarae

the adorable cactus i neglected to get the name of

whale's tongue??

and apparently the most photogenic of the group agave potatorum. funny name.

after shopping the plant sale i went to "the great outdoors" and got some really great italian terra cotta pots for a steal! if you're looking for some simple, sleek pots run over there tomorrow, there were still some left! very cool and a bargain.