Lupins in Maine

Lupins. 

I had never seen these flowers before we moved

to Maine last year.

 They grow wild everywhere here.

Literally.

 As you ride through the countryside,

you will see pink, purple, blue.

Growing in wild abandon in fields,

in the woods, in yards. Everywhere.

 We got some seed last year and planted them

around the dragon hollow.

They take a full 365 days to germinate.

Not a single one grew.

Boooo!

 So, this year we planted seeds in the flower garden.

Direct sunlight.

We will see if that works.

 In the interim, this patch popped up at the edge

of our yard - where the wild raspberries line the

woods line. They had so many bees visiting today.

I think these are my favorite flower I've found up here.

Of course, I may have already said that about other ones.

Like the Stinking Benjamins.

Or the goldenrods that are just starting to bloom.

Seriously. There is just sooooo much to love here

in Maine.

Getting Sketchy for this Week

 This week for Getting Sketchy, 

I worked on Fantasy Landscapes which were presented

by Sandra Strait in the Facebook group

Zentangle All Around. 

Here is a link to Sandra's challenge for us.

 Sandra had a whole set of patterns for landscaping

based on circles, squares and triangles.

Those are what I chose to Get Sketchy with this week.

 It came to me that these look a lot like Dr. Seuss

drawings, so I went with that theme. 

 I think the triangle patterns were my favorite!

 Especially that cute little kitten bush!

And these awesome sheep! (Hers look better than mine!) To see what I tangled up with all my favorite patterns, see my post just before this one. You never know what we are going to be doing in  Zentangle All Around!

Fantasy Landscapes Seuss Style - Hopefully :)

 One of the prompts this week in 

Zentangle All Around

is to use Sandra Strait's step outs and

make a fantasy landscape!

You can see all her patterns she developed

for this process here on her blog. 

I began by practicing Sandra's step outs in my journal.

I drew the ones that I liked best, then put stars

by the ones I thought looked the most

Dr. Seuss-y!

I did not use all the patterns I marked, but I pulled from them to do this.  One thing Sandra did that I totally forgot was to color the landscape itself - the grounds, the skies - and add tangles to those.  My journal is a 5" x 8" and doesn't have a lot of space for everything I wanted to do. I do love the way it turned out, though. And I can still add to the background.

Lastly, I added color. My thought with the grass clumps and the white spaces was that when I used to read ALL those Dr. Seuss books to the kids - I remember lots of white space. Am I wrong?  My favorite parts are - the water fountain I made using one of Sandra's plant patterns and the leaning building I made from one of her plant patterns and  those crazy little tie-died sheep! And  I totally had to add an inukshuk for my Canadian peeps.  Now I think I will go back and add some watercolor washes to the backgrounds.
For those who want to know - the watercolors I used are Schmincke. I also used Lolliz gel pens to add lots of sparkle. Which - for the most part - doesn't photograph.
Fantasy Landscapes. It's where it's at this week in Zentangle All Around (FB).