Scanned Flowers

The snow has melted a little and the big icicles have fallen from our windows. The icicles were so huge they shook the house as they fell sending my dog and cats into tizzies.

But the snow is still so deep I can't get leave the drive way and road.

I have been working on my botanical prints, flowers and foliage that I scan directly into the computer, photographs made without using a camera.

I have developed a technique that creats a sheer, almost x-ray effect, luminous. I especially like the transparency of the foliage in these images.

They are available on Etsy now in various sizes or as cards.
























COPYRIGHT
As some of you know I was an attorney in my prior life, art of course is a little less lucrative (hah!) but a lot more fun.
I often have a hard time reading the Etsy forums because of the all the incorrect legal advice and misinformation given there. So I think I will begin a little series on copyright and trademark - some of the basics and especially some of the issues that come up again and again like copyrighting patterns and the creations made from patterns, using licensed fabrics, etc.
First of all keep in mind that law is complicated, there are often no clear answers. Law has two main sources - written laws - the constitution and statutes and case law - the law as it is interpreted by the courts. Lawmakers cannot foresee all the complicated human situations that will arise so the courts must interpret the law on a case by case basis, creating legal precidents that are themselves reinterpreted by other courts. Anyway just keep in mind that there are rarely black and white answers.

What can be copyrighted? Any original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. For the visuals artist this includes:
paintings, photographs, prints, reproductions, maps, drawings, charts, diagrams, sculpture, models, wall reliefs, jewelry.

What cannot be copyrighted?
1. Ideas or other intangibles. An idea cannot be copyrighted only its expression.
For example, you are a photographer and you come up with the original idea of photographing a sunset (let us assume this has never been done before). You can copyright the actual photo you took but not the idea of photographing sunsets. All the other photographers in the world are free to steal your idea and photograph a million sunsets, and then copyright their photos.
2. Useful objects, anything that is primarily utilitarian.
You CANNOT copyright, hats, glove, clothing, toys, toasters, pencils, purses etc.
There are sometimes other legal issues with knock offs of clothing, purses etc. but they are not copyright issus.
There is a major exception - if the useful object has art work on it, that art work is protected by copyright. So if you put your painting on a t-shirt, the t-shirt design cannot be copyrighted but your painting is protected.

Cosmos

I love cosmos, I think they are beautiful massed in the garden or as cut flowers.
January is not a great gardening month in New Hampshire but it is a wonderful time to dream and fantasize over seed catalogues. I used to order hundreds of packets of seeds each winter and have 50 or 60 trays of seedlings reading for planting in the spring. Then the hard work of finding room for all of these little plants would begin.
I have slowly learned that I cannot have every plant in every seed catalogue and only allow myself a few choice selections each year.
Topping my list this year is the new Cosmos 'Double Click Rose Bonbon'. I am fond of simple single flowers but must admit to a weakness for lush, over the top double flowers. And these new cosmos are just sumptuous.

Garden Resources:

You can see (and buy if you'd like) the new Cosmos 'Double Click' at Thomas and Morgan Seeds.
Thomas and Morgan has one of the most extensive lists of flowers seeds. There are great pictures of all their listing. I use it as my flower bible.


















Find of the Day: What a beautiful little painting of a cosmos by Coleen Olson. It is gouache on watercolor paper. A 5 x 7 print of this painting is available for only $20 on her Etsy shop Parrish.

Chartreuse

I had dinner at my friend Virginia's the other night: she is a terrific potter and had new worked glazed in gorgeous chartreuse, my favorite color. I am a sucker for any plant with chartreuse flowers or foliage. It glows in the garden bringing light and air to even gloomy flowerless shade.


In the first picture there is a bouquet of chartreuse Lady's Mantle flowers and steel blue eryngium, a pretty but prickly flower. The garden shot shows the little iris cristata which blooms briefly each spring with the golden leafed grass hakonechloa macra "Aureola" and the beautiful chartreuse cultivar of thalictrum.


In choosing chartreuse plants you are limited only by the size of your garden and your pocketbook. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of golden hostas, and several gorgeous heucheras including 'lime rickey'.


Two pretty ground covers are vinca 'illuminatation' and lysimachia nummularia 'aurea', which is chartreuse in shade but bright yellow with too much sun. For a taller lysimachia there is 'goldilocks'.


The thalictrum mentioned above and filipendula aurea are lovely bits of golden lace. I have some chartreuse leafed columbines I grew from seed. The foliage is gorgeous, the flowers a rather drab blue purple. Herbs include golden oregano, several thymes and sages though I have had some trouble wintering all of these over in my cold garden. Centaurea 'gold bullion' and spiderwort 'sweet Kate' are both spectacular with their blue-purple flowers against the golden foliage. And the foliage of dicentra 'gold heart' is lovely with the little pink hearts.


Though not hardy there are many pretty chartreuse and gold varieties of geraniums and coleus.


There are beautiful chartreuse shrubs: several Japanese maples, philadelphus 'aurea' (mock orange), golden spirea, carytoperus 'Worcester gold'. The latter should not be hardy in my garden but has lasted here for several years.


Find of the Day


I usually like to include a flower find in my post. These earring are not flowers but I cannot resist the color, I have a purse that matches this lovely green. Paring the bright blue finding with this green is color genius. They are made by Strange Little Bird (http://www.strangelittlebird.etsy.com/).

Allium

I am a great fan of alliums, the lovely ornamental onions. Most gardeners are familiar with the spring and early summer flowering bulbs. They emerge as great purple or white balls of tiny flowers and then their foliage dies away like daffodil and tulips foliage.
Although I have read that only people eat onions I have found that many of my alliums disappear after a few years. I don't know if they are dinner for my underground neighbors or the conditions in my garden don't meet their long term needs.
Luckily two of my favorites are very long lived. Allium Globemaster is a hybrid cross of A. Christophii and A. elatum. It is a huge allium with a 10" ball of little purple flowers that can soar 3 feet tall. Although it is expensive you only need a few for a spectacular display, a display that will come back year after year. Plus, the flowers are sterile so they last and last in the garden or in a vase, keeping there color for about a month.
But for a lasting dried flower they can't compare to their parent species, allium christophii. These huge silvery balls dry to spectacular dried flowers that last for years in a dried arrangement. A. christophii, alas, tends to disappear from my garden over time.

The alliums in the photographs are allium tanguticum, a less well know but very long lived species. The alliums I discribed earlier are classified as SUDS, summer-dormant species. As noted they act like typical bulbs and their foliage dies back after they flower. A. tanguticum is a SUTS, a summer thriving species. It does not flowers until July and the foliage stays pretty and green all season. It is a wonderful perennial with the clumps getter larger and larger each year. I think this can occasionally be purchased in pots at nurseries. I buy mine from the McClure & Zimmerman bulb catalogue, http://www.mzbulb.com/ and plant it in the fall at the same time as tulips and daffodils. This is not a huge allium, just a foot or so high but with dozens and dozens of pretty purple balls.

Garden Resourses;

The Perennial Gardener by Frederick McGourty
A wonderfully informative and entertaining gardening book. It has a very detailed and informative chapter about alliums, SUDS and SUTS.

McClure & Zimmerman
Quality Flowerbulb Brokers
http://www.mzbulb.com/
An excellent and reliable source for bulbs including many rarities.

Flower Find.
I am in love with Jennifer Morris's jewelry. (Please note if my husband is reading this, something to remember for Christmas) She makes the beads from polymer clay and each is a tiny work of floral art. Esquisite. You can see her jewelry at http://www.jennifermorrisbeads.etsy.com/.

Green Thumb/Black Thumb

A friend asked me to include some gardening tips for those with black thumbs and I have tried to offer planting and growing information in each post. But I agree with Henry Mitchell's words in the Essential Earthman:
"Now the gardener is the one who has seen everything ruined so many times that (even as his pain increases with each loss) he comprehends--truly knows--that where there was a garden once, it can be again,...There are no green thumbs or black thumbs. There are only gardeners and non-gardeners. Gardeners are the ones who ruin after ruin get on with the high defiance of nature herself, creating, in the very face of her chaos and tornado, the bower of roses and the pride of irises. ..Defiance...is what makes gardeners." p. 3

Weather, soil, hard work, all are part of gardening. But in the end a garden is a precarious undertaking. Plants themselves have minds of their own. A friend gave me three divisions of sedum Autumn Joy, an easy and reliable plant. I planted the three divisions in a triangle in nice garden soil. Two of the divisions thrived , the third just sat there. I left the plants for three years with the two lusty sisters growing into huge plants while the runt barely held onto life. Same soil, same plant, who can explain it? I finally moved the runt to a new spot and there is flurished.

So I suppose the best advice to gardeners is to persevere, just keep planting and something will like you and grow. The coneflowers in these photographs are extremely easy , they seem to do well no matter how they are treated. There are also many pretty new hybrids in opulent colors and more restrained sizes.

Sweet Peas

Lathyrus odoratus, the annual sweet pea, is a favorite flower. The colors are gorgeous, the fragrance exquisite.

It is not the easiest flower to grow however. I start mine indoors but plant them out quickly so they don't become a tangled mess. Soak the seeds a few hours before planting. They need rich soil and cool, moist weather, which can be hard to supply in American gardens. The older varieties, often labeled "antique" have smaller flowers but are more forgiving of an imperfect environment. The first picture here shows a very old variety that is an easy grower 'Matucana'. What these old varieties lose in flower size they compensate for with their intense perfumes. You can smell this flower all over the garden.



There is also a very pretty perennial sweet pea, lathyrus latifolius. It is usually available in pink shades but I have a pure white (seen in the second picture) that is very pretty. This plant is very easy to grow and easily started from seed. It is dead hardy. It is a very strong grower and would be a great choice to hide an unsightly structure or fence. It does need a trellis or other support, it is not goint to hold on with suckers like an ivy. Unfortunately it has no perfume.



Flower Find

Another project for these endless rainy days or a cold winter evening might be these cross stitch sweet peas. The pattern was adapted by Jfrank1970 from a painting by Sue Woodfine and is available from her shop on Etsy, http://www.jfrank1970.etsy.com/. She also has other patterns available and can supply kits.

California Poppies

Eschscholzia californica. The California poppy is not a true poppy but it shares their lovely papery petals and form.
The native California poppy comes in lovely warm orange shades but the hybrids come in many shades of orange, red, creamy whites and pinks. There are singles and doubles, all very beautiful.
These poppies are quite hardy and even in New Hampshire can be started early by seed strewn outside or started in little peat pots that can be planted out in early May even before the last frost.

A Flower Find
If you prefer to wear your flowers what about this cute poppy skirt? Made by AnnaBlues of pumpkin colored corduroy over layers of netting and a wild flower print. Gorgeous.

Iris Again

I have been experimenting with scanning flowers directly into the computer on my flat bed scanner rather than photographing them with a camera. I am seeking an ethereal, transparent effect, almost like an x-ray of a flower.
The little yellow iris I am using here has been with me all of my life, it grew in my grandmother’s and my mother’s gardens. One of the easiest iris to grow, it is not as showy as the big hybrids but also less susceptible to borers and wind.

I love the little iris pendant. It is a real iris petal preserved and embellished with crystals to make a unique necklace. The pendant and other flower petal jewelry can be seen (and purchased of course) at http://www.paperplanet.etsy.com/ .

Another incredible iris find is Iris, the dress, from Barcelona, Spain. Expensive ($285) but it is silk and so elegant. Many products have flower names but this one actually has the look and feel of its namesake. Imagine wearing a silk iris. The dress and other creations is at http://www.cocottecouture.etsy.com/ .

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