Seasonal notes

4
Jan
December floral notes
personal / Seasonal notes / 4 Comments / January 4, 2019

December is a palette of white, muted greys, blues, greens, and purples, with a few touches of colour: pink to remind me of pale dawns and hazy beech woods, and red for holly berries.

The days are short and mostly grey. Occasionally the sun makes an appearance, hanging low in the sky, casting long shadows.

There’s no snow, but at times milky skies and mist, like a veil, shroud the world and turn it into a dreamy, evanescent fairy land. The beauty of Winter, understated, mysterious, and full of possibility.

I feel the desire to hibernate, sit by the fire with a book, wrap myself in a blanket, rest, and turn inwards.
I miss not having a fireplace, so I place candles all around the house, and on our dining table. The warm, soft glow of candle light makes every meal feel special, even a simple bowl of soup.

I spend the first three weeks of the month working mostly on my new e-course and mini masterclasses, editing videos and recording voice overs.
I don’t have much time to play with flowers and create floral images, but I manage to decorate the house for the holidays.
I hang rose hips and little stars to a branch wall hanging, twine fairy lights around a pine branch, choose a spot by the sofa for the tree, and buy a few potted hyacinths.

The house feels festive but calm, just how I like it. On the winter solstice I burn a candle and some incense to celebrate light, and the days slowly getting longer.

After years of staying safely behind the camera, except for a few rare appearances of my hands, I finally dare to include my face in an image, and create an enchanted, dreamy self-portrait. It feels slightly odd to be in front of the camera, but I’m happy with the result – just what I had in mind.

My resolution to eat in moderation fails the moment I taste my first mince pie. I decide to indulge for a few days, ’tis that time of the year after all. I make vegan ricciarelli, vegan panettone, and other delicacies.

On Christmas day we take it easy, fill our bellies with way too much food, doze on the sofa, watch a film. In the late afternoon the telephone rings, bringing sad news…my mother-in-law, who’s been ill for a while, just passed away.

She was a quiet, caring lady who lived a simple life in a small Tuscan village, looking after her son and daughters, a few grandchildren, and even a great-grandson. She will be missed.

Her death reminds me that life is precious and fragile…it reminds me to be grateful for my blessings, to spend time with my loved ones, and to appreciate each moment, and all the little, ordinary things that make up my day and are so easily overlooked.

And so, as I do my annual review of 2018 and make plans for 2019, I keep all this in mind, and remember to focus my time and energy on what’s really important. Onwards.

 

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P.S. In my monthly newsletter Creative Notes I share updates on my work, composition tips, thoughts on creativity, promo codes and special offers for my online classes, and access to my Inspiration library and more free downloads – you can subscribe here
In the Inspiration Library you’ll also find my workbook/planner “Creative Intentions 2019”, free for you to download, to help you review your creative journey in 2018, and set intentions for 2019. Enjoy :)


28
Nov
November floral notes
photography / Seasonal notes / 6 Comments / November 28, 2018

 

Another month is coming to an end, wrapped in mist, rain, fallen leaves, a few beautiful sunsets, and the first frosts.


I didn’t spend as much time in nature as I would have liked, partly because of the weather and partly because I’ve been busy creating images and working on my still life photography courses.

When I have a bust of creative energy I tend to retreat into my own world, going from camera to notebook to computer, neglecting routines and just giving myself heart and soul to my projects…so I had to force myself to go for a walk at least at the weekend, to keep some kind of balance.

November gave us much cooler days, and the garden looks quite forlorn. My hellebore plant has got some kind of fungus and it’s not doing so well, so I have no flowers for my photos, and have to check the local florists for flowers and foliage that I can use to evoke the feel of Autumn.

I have a couple of boxes where I keep dried leaves, ferns, and other botanical snippets that I can use for my photographs.
My husband brought me a few ginkgo leaves from a tree near his office, and I made the most of fruit, berries, rose hips, and even a beautiful ornamental cabbage – they’re usually massive, but this one was small enough to fit in with the other elements.
I love its colour and the leaves texture – nature never fails to amaze me.

I used pumpkins too for my still life images, as I love their shape.
The Crown Prince squash is my favourite, with its lovely blue-grey skin and delicious, sweet flesh that’s perfect for pumpkin pie and roasted pumpkin soup.
I found a squash small enough to use in my classical still life images, but it was too large for my flatlays, so I painted a few mini pumpkins in my favourite shades of Payne grey, white, and pale pink, same as I did a couple of years ago.
These colours make me think of misty sunrises over frosted landscapes, I love their delicate softness…

The vintage French manuscript made another appearance in my work, and a new heart-shaped mug that was a gift from my parents – thank you mum & dad for a perfect present!

The days are getting shorter and shorter…winter is coming, and there’s very little light to play with. Time to embrace the darkness, look for beauty in the shadows, and create dark and moody still life images inspired by the Dutch masters.

Soon I’ll take the baubles out of their box, and play around with decorations, pine branches, holly and mistletoe…getting ready for Yule, and the Winter Solstice.

 

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P.S. In my monthly newsletter Creative Notes I share more updates on my work, composition tips, thoughts on creativity, promo codes and special offers for my online classes, and access to my Inspiration library – you can subscribe here

 


31
Oct
October floral notes
photography / Seasonal notes / styling / 4 Comments / October 31, 2018

October greeted us with an Indian summer, warmer than usual temperatures, and glorious sunny days. I took advantage of the lovely weather and went for long walks in the woods with my husband, collecting leaves, rose hips, crab apples, and other botanical snippets to use in my work.

Walking in nature is my favourite way to get back to the present moment, connect with the Earth, and quieten my anxious mind. When I’m back home I like to create seasonal displays to celebrate the season and reconnect with that feeling of stillness and belonging I experience when I’m in the woods (I wrote an article about this for Breathe magazine issue 16, on sale now).

All the little bits and pieces I collected found a place in my floral images, and I also resurrected an old prop – an vintage French manuscript – and played with it. I get bored of props all the time and stop using them, but after a while they feel inspiring again.

The garden gave its last bounty of miniature roses and Japanese anemones, and I was able to find some colourful dahlias at a local flower farm. I felt drawn to pink, purple, orange, and blue.

Little pumpkins started to make an appearance too, and the last of the café-au-lait dahlias.

Mid-October I spent 12 days travelling to France and Italy, to visit friends and family. We drove from Oxfordshire to southern Tuscany, which is quite a long, tiring journey, but I loved the slower pace of travel and enjoyed looking at the beautiful autumnal landscapes we found along the way, together with some spectacular sunsets.

On our return the weather changed and temperatures dropped. On Sunday the clock went backwards, and each day is getting shorter and chillier.
In the morning I like to spend a few minutes wrapped up in a blanket, nursing a warm cup of tea, just looking at the frost in the garden, with its sparkling lacy patterns spread over the lawn and plants.

Slowly but steadily, all the leaves are changing colour and falling, reminding me of the beauty of letting go.

Today I made my first pumpkin pie of the season, just in time for Samhain – the Celtic festival celebrating the end of harvest time and the beginning of winter, the darker half of the year. The Celts used to remember and honour the family’s ancestor, inviting them home, and wore masks and costumes to disguise themselves as harmful spirits and so avoid harm. They lit bonfires, and went from home to home reciting verses in exchange for food.
That’s where the tradition of Halloween originated, and even though I don’t go trick or treating I do like to celebrate with a lovely meal based on autumnal food, like pumpkin, apples, chestnuts, and mushrooms.

My local flower farms have all closed down for the winter season, and are getting ready to plant spring bulbs. Even though I prefer home grown flowers, I’ll start buying from the florist again…waiting for the first hellebores to bloom in my garden.

 

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1
Oct
September floral notes
photography / Seasonal notes / 18 Comments / October 1, 2018

Lately I’ve been thinking about my blog and website, and how I’ve neglected both in favour of my Instagram gallery. There’s only a finite number of hours in a day, and I seem to have a never-ending stream of ideas and projects to work on, so something is always bound to be left behind – and I made my peace with this.  What I’ve started questioning though is the wisdom, or lack of, of favouring a social media platform, which constantly changes whether I like it or not, over my own little piece of the internet, my online nest.
So far I’ve always prioritised creating content for my Instagram feed over creating blog posts, for a series of reasons, but mostly because styling, composition and photography are more natural, and take me less time, than writing does.

The fact that nowadays most people prefer to leave comments on social media rather than on blogs also had an impact on my choices – after all, it always feels nice to receive some kind of feedback, and when you’ve spent hours writing and editing a thoughtful post, it can be a bit underwhelming to get little or no feedback.
But then I remembered when I started posting regularly on Instagram. At the time I had very few followers, and I was happy to create an image and post it, not because of likes and comments but for the sheer joy of creating and curating my own gallery, and see the seasonal changes reflected in my work.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that I’m a recovering perfectionist. When I create images I have learnt to let go of perfectionism and go with the flow,  but when I write I still find it difficult not to constantly edit my words, and that obviously takes a lot of time and effort.

So I’ve decided to create a lighter series of blog posts to share images of the flowers I photographed during each each month, and also some quick reflections about the month itself, starting with September.

We had wonderful weather in September, with lots of sunshine, cooler temperatures, and a beautiful light. My roses bloomed again, and even though  smaller than their June counterparts, they were still gorgeous.

Cosmos and Japanese anemones were in full bloom too, and I managed to buy some beautiful dahlias and some late sweet peas from a local flower farm. The café au lait dahlias were incredible, especially the ones with pink hues – my favourite ones. I long for a garden with enough room for a cut flower patch, with café au lait dahlias of course :)

Chamomile, lavender, and hydrangeas were still in bloom, but their season is almost to an end. Seed heads, physalis, dried flowers, rose hips, and leaves are starting to make an appearance in my photographs, and there will be more of them throughout October.

The days are getting shorter, mornings are crisp and call for warm jumpers. I’ve seen the first mist, smelled wood smoke  in the air, and soon the ground will be covered with a rich golden carpet of crunchy leaves…and I’m already longing for hot soup, pumpkin pie, cosy blankets, and lazy Sundays spent snuggled up on the sofa with a book and endless cups of tea – Autumn at its best.

 

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P.S. If you’d like to join my monthly newsletter Creative Notes for thoughts on creativity, updates on my work, composition tips, and access to my Inspiration library, subscribe here