Free shipping on my designs this weekend

I just noticed that there is Free Worldwide Shipping on Cally Creates products in my Society 6 shop this weekend. With this heatwave making Scotland hotter than LA this month it seemed fitting to highlight my LA inspired Amorph range which was very much based on the vibrancy and colour of living near the beach in California in the 80s. The intensity of the light in Venice totally changed the way I worked with colour. This design is available as prints, cards, cushions, cases & skins for various phones/iPods/iPads/laptops.

Nearly all my Society 6 work is based on my old college sketchbooks and designs from the late 80s and early 90s. It's nice to see them released back into the wild after being in captivity for 25+ years and it's a way of keeping my hand in so I don't completely lose all my computer skills (M.E. is really messing with my memory for such things, I couldn't even remember how to cut and paste last week).

Here are a few more designs that are more reminiscent of the colours of a Scottish Summer where the beach colours are less intense but they have a fresh quality that reflects the  clean air and blue skies we get. I'm fairly sure I was also influenced by old tiles for the Carina pattern. 1.Carina (blue) 2.Tilly (blue grey) 3.Carina (grey)
 

Flowers in a very hot July

June sunrise 4.49am

The sun has been rising at around 4.30 lately and I'd hoped to get some nice Solstice shots but alas it was too cloudy. Instead here's how it looked at 4.49 on the 23rd and 25th of June.

Still cloudy but mainly near the horizon so the rest of the sky was pretty bright (not that it even gets truly dark at this time of year unless it's heavy cloud at night).

Angelica, Dogwood and Enkianthus in June

The Angelica is in it's 3rd year and despite a late start it put on an astonishing amount of growth in the last 4 weeks, it's huge! Last year it was a bit taller than me but this year it's taller than the shed, probably about 10ft tall, and may grow more. What a wonderful giant of a thing.

The Dogwood is Cornus 'Hedgerow's Gold' which always lights up it's mostly shady corner.

The Enkianthus - oh what a delight to see. Last year the constant vicious gales and 2nd late freeze meant it only had about 4 flowers, poor thing. This year it is SMOTHERED in them and they are strongly resisting the gales today, which fortunately are of a much warmer nature than the ones that ripped the leaves off the trees last year.

The White Lilac has flowered really well, it's been getting pruned back over the last 3 years and this is it's first year without any of the old unproductive branches. It seems very happy about it and the flower clusters have held on for at least a full month.

The Rowans haven't recovered fully and like so many trees around Scotland they are looking a bit see-through, but I'm pleased to see they are managing a few smaller scale flower clusters so we will get berries this year (so long as no freak weather comes along before September).

More plant photo's to follow just as soon as I get them cropped.

Pink and Purple May flowers & foliage

Hard to get the colours right on screen, the Azalea is pink but the others are all a tad more lilac or purple than they look here. Azalea 'Girard's Hotshot', Hebe, Wallflower Erysimum Bowles Mauve and 3 shots of Tulip Attilla which I was amazed survived the wet winter as it's in clay soil.

Late but lovely Spring Clematis & Tulips

Clematis Alpina & Clematis Broughton Bride finally opened in the garden with the Tulips, not sure which type of tulips they are, I must have it written somewhere, but they are so crisp and clean looking in green and white, I really love their purity.

As the month comes to a close it has managed to squeeze in the opening of the White Lilac and the Spanish Bluebells which I like to have in a jar beside the computer where I can enjoy the scent when I am catching up on my long neglected emails - it's been quite a year so far, I am so far behind with everything, but I guess that just makes me more in tune with the higgelty piggelty lateness of the seasons. I can hardly believe we are about to enter June already when only a month ago the garden was covered in snow!

Happy 1st of May

The flowers are a month late this year so I found some photo's from 1st of May 2004.

Spring at last in lilac tones

Eeesch, just realised March has pretty much been and gone and I've posted nothing so on a rare moment of energy (the sugar high from too many medjool dates!!!) I thought I'd squeeze one in quickly before bed.

It's been the most unusual March ever, in terms of the weather and my energy, both not what they should be for a month that normally signals the start of Spring. The 1st of March held great promise with real heat in the sun showing up the earliest of the flowers and buds. Then boof, snow, heavy snow, light snow, dry snow, wet snow, sleet, hail, fluffy snow, rain and then more snow, for pretty much the whole month. And oh so cold. But also so white, which I always love.

The crocuses in the South facing raised beds had started to open (along with snowdrops, still doing well from February) and some of the early daffodils (and by early I mean the kind that should arrive in late January, goodness only knows when we'll see the ones that were due in March). But the poor crocuses were quickly buried by several inches of snow and have not been seen since. Luckily the north facing ones hadn't popped their heads up yet so I hope they will appear in April when warmer weather arrives (hopefully).

So much cold is hard going but part of the trouble with my health lately has had a side effect - it radically increases my temperature, so cold weather helps cool me down a bit - or my body helps warm me up, depends what way I look at it. Either way it is working out quite well.

Visually it really has been lovely to see so much snow, and it's made me feel less like I am missing Spring when I'm stuck in bed. Plus it bounces lots of extra light into the house when the sun does shine, which it often has. I'd never before seen really big snowflakes on a sunny day, or rainbows over snowy ground. Delightful treats for someone like me, though I really do feel for sheep as it's lambing time and I know a lot have died. I always feel so sad for animals when there is extreme and untimely weather. And for people too, there have been a lot of people with much worse snow than ours and who have lost power. I really do feel so sorry for them and hope that none of you have been at the bad end of natures blast this Winter/Spring.

Mosaic Skulls by Crystal Thomas

I'm absolutely loving these striking Mosaic Bison skulls by Crystal Thomas from her Flickr page. They are exactly the sort of patterns I draw and cut, but elevated to something so much more. Her website includes a link for a tutorial to make your own. She does them in all sorts of designs an colours but these black and white ones grabbed me the most.