My favorite garden guide... Fionna G

  This is the garden club.....

 

 And this is the garden,
 It's a wild and crazy cottage garden.

Here are a few of the creatures that dwell here...it's a very busy place

  and here is the garden guide,

You remember our garden guide, don't you? 
 Fionna Goosefeathers
Here:
http://hopalonghollowgazette.blogspot.com/2010/06/up-garden-paths.html

What would a Hopalong Hollowscaping Garden Book be without Fionna?

And Here:
http://hopalonghollowgazette.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-gardens-in-august-with-fionna.html

The lovely and knowledgeable Fionna Goosefeathers is giving a tour to one of the many garden clubs that visit her each Spring to learn the secrets of her lush and lovely cottage garden.
AND Here:
  http://hopalonghollowgazette.blogspot.com/2012/05/waddling-round-in-hollow-with-fiona.html

When I first drew her on this page, something seemed very wrong...

 I realized her neck was too fat and too short. Therefore, I had to erase everything from beneath her the chin down to her waist, and start over.
I do a lot of erasing.
Remember this: draw light till you get it right.

That's better... that's a goose neck.

 Everyone loves a cottage garden, at least we hope they do, and these little gardeners are no exception.

  I find it interesting to draw a garden, there is so much going on in the "background" the little spaces behind the leaves and blooms, so many shadows and values with bits and pieces.

 However, I find it very tricky to PAINT a floral background.  I am sure those who often paint flowers in watercolor have special methods and techniques for applying color to what is BEHIND those flowers, but I often feel quite lost when I am ready to paint  a garden piece like this.

The artwork in this picture  is difficult to "see" without the color.
I will add a few more insects... I have some fine models here.

Can you believe it??!! Aren't these super?

 I will tuck their images in the background, amid flowers and leaves,
for what is a garden without the smallest of creatures?

 I put the rhinoceros beetles in the foreground, just for Diane in N.C., a lover of fascinating insects.

 I first painted Fionna Goosefeathers for another book,here....

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and Here:

http://hopalonghollowgazette.blogspot.com/2013/02/mona-lisa-of-goose-kind-part-2.html
Have a happy day!