People in Glass Houses

A little late this post but over Easter I noticed I had this quick take of these three sketchers, completely absorbed in their drawings at the top of the glass house in the Tropical Centre.  The moment before I had been in this same state, in the periscope world of drawing where time charges on, momentarily without you, only to tap your shoulder at some point and say you are late.

Plants in Glasses Houses and Autumn herself

The last Saturday's morning class with viscously mobile acrylic paints  proved I was by far  the messiest student, early on gaining the distinction of a green-spotted nose.  We spent the rest of the sketching time in the Tropical  Centre. The pitcher plant I sketched twining habit's had a certain narcisstic romance to them. 


Autumn, part of a Seasonal Set in the stairs up to the Rose Garden, had caught my eye some weeks back and I had quickly sketched on my dash homewards. The lipstick and the shirazed grapes aremy  fictional colourizations - Salute!

Lower Gardens, Lotus Pond

I missed the morning sketching class and arrived a bit late in the afternoon, before settling down to be hypnotised by lotus fronds.  While I was sketching this, five ibises stalked past, two dusky moor hens walked by me, a neat-footed boy came right up and checked this out before I noticed him.  Two Indian ladies, one with a pink headscarf , a crocheted triangle in shell stitch, posed nearby me for a photograph.  The strange black finial is a ring-in from the gates near the Con, which i think someone wiser would have left out. April 2, 2011.

Lower Garden – Lotus Pond

Watching the lotus leaves, crowded, flippant,

in a lake subsumed by jostling, a party of flirts

who smile and stare, then blow the other way.

None are perfect, most blowsy

with torn edges, fading patches

and yellow margins, some younger leaves

pruned savagely by insects.

The pond heaves and shivers,

courts the wind, unlikely picnickers

they fill the field, while I try to push

a green puddle into shape.

Then a dusky moor hen steps past, [more timid

than a Coot, tamer than a swamp hen]

red and black feet latent with possibilities.

sts back I was sketching lotus flowers in a vase.

Agave - near the East Gate

The Agave is one of the 'draw-me' succulents,a graphically alluring cocktail of colour and form - not that I am attracted to cocktails, especially those tequila based ones which Agaves are so famous for providing the makings of.  The right-hand spiralling lealf form, lying fairly close the ground, with those sharp-edged teeth put me in mind of a galaxy, spinning out from the central point where - well, how do galaxies get going? 

Cunningham Courtyard, Botanic Gardens, Sketching Class

The Sabal palm was the geometric show-off in the Cunningham Courtyard. But then there was also that woman in white, let's call her Miss Cunningham, watching the grass tree leaves swoosh around in the wind.  Too tempting not to subvert the plant sign into:

Miss Cunningham

Courting cold,  she stares,
wardrobe missing? Cupboard bare?
A case, again, of nothing to wear. 


from Carol Jenkins

Sketching Class - The Bot Gardens for Beginners

It's week two for me in my first ever art class, bookmaking and sketching with Wendy Shortland, which I am enjoying very much.  To describe something my first instinct is to start writing, though whether it's words or ink, looking takes the cake. Here I may have bitten off to much,with this scene from the courtyard of the Moore Room. Still it's the luxury of a cacaphony of plants, that green thought manifest, the sense of riot and abundance, which makes it such a pleasure to attempt to translate the garden to paper. Next week I hope to turn a few  new leaves!  Carol J.