Seriously Shirley
April 23, 2020
watercolour 5″ x 7″ on Bockingford Paper
by Lance Weisser
SOLD
“Surely you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley.” [movie: ‘Airplane’ with Leslie Nielsen]
Seriously, here’s where the Shirley Poppy gets its name:
“. . . Shirley Poppies are actually not a distinct species, but rather a strain, or even more correctly, multiple strains of the species P. rhoeas which have been selected for a colour break from the wild species. Rather than completely red, the first strains were carefully selected for their pastel colors so stylish in the late 1800’s. The name Shirley Poppies comes from where the first strain was developed, in the village of Shirley, in the United Kingdom where the vicar of a parish in the village made the very first selections, thus, isolating the first strains from wild poppies. Since then, all Shirley Poppy selections have originated from that first selection, and many are still grown today. . . ”
[source: http://www.growingwithplants.com/2012/07/shirley-poppies-step-by-step.html]Peace
April 12, 2020
A bouquet of Peace roses on Easter Sunday, offering up peace of heart and mind during these uncertain times of isolation ….
watercolour, 7.5″ x 10″, Arches #140 Cold Press Paper
by Lance Weisser
SOLD
The Peace Rose was developed/cultivated from a seed the size of a pinhead in Lyon in 1935 by the French commercial rose-growing family, the Meilland’s, and introduced simply as ‘3-35-40’. Attracting much attention for its beauty at a rose convention in 1939, France was invaded by Hitler and the Meilland properties seized and used for food production.
In desperation, the Meilland’s smuggled ‘3-35-40’ out of France in a diplomatic satchel to The United States, where, in 1940, it was submitted to The All-America Rose Selections (AARS) for a three year testing. Based on the success of this testing, a launch date of April 29, 1945, was chosen to coincide with the Pacific Rose Society Annual Exhibition in Pasadena, California.
‘3-35-40’ still did not have a real name. Then, April 29th, 1945, its official launch date, coincided with the fall of Berlin and the declaration of a Europe-wide truce.
At The Pacific Rose Society Annual Exhibition, two doves were released and ‘3-35-40’ was christened by The AARS via this statement:
“We are persuaded that this greatest new rose of our time should be named for the world’s greatest desire: ‘PEACE’.“
The new rose ‘PEACE’ was officially awarded the AARS award on the day that the war in Japan ended, and on May 8, 1945, with the formal surrender of Germany, each of the 49 delegates to the newly created United Nations were presented with a bloom of “Peace”.
“As for the Meillands, whose rose farms and family assets were destroyed by World War II, the commercial success of “Peace” enable the family business to recover and subsequently continue to develop new, beautiful roses. In what might be a moral to a parable Francis Meilland, who died in 1958, wrote in his diary:
‘How strange to think that all these millions of rose bushes sprang from one tiny seed no bigger than the head of a pin, a seed which we might so easily have overlooked, or neglected in a moment of inattention’ . . . “
butterfly morning
June 18, 2015
Many butterflies have developed interesting ways of defending themselves from predators. One method is disguise, or “cryptic coloration”, where the butterfly has the ability to look like a leaf or blend into the bark of a tree to hide from predators. Another method is chemical defense, where the butterfly has evolved to have toxic chemicals in its body. These species of butterfly are often brightly colored, and predators have learned over time to associate their bright color with the bad taste of the chemicals. (source:http://www.defenders.org/butterflies/basic-facts)
As children, we chased them with homemade cheesecloth and coathanger nets, paying frequent visits to our neighbour’s butterfly bush which truly was just that. Of course, today they are no longer so abundant and butterflies are–I grew to know–best viewed while alive and gracing the perennials in the front yard.
shirley poppies
June 14, 2015
The Shirley poppy was ‘created’ circa 1880 by the Reverend William Wilks, vicar of the parish of Shirley in England. Rector Wilks found in a corner of his garden where it adjoined arable fields, a variant of the field poppy that had a narrow white border around the petals.
By careful selection and hybridization over many years The Rev. Wilks obtained a strain of poppies ranging in colour from white and pale lilac to pink and red, and unlike the wild poppies these had no dark blotches at the base of the petals. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Poppy, photo credit: http://pantip.com/topic/30827995)
‘Shirley Poppies’, watercolour, Bockingford Cold Press 140# Paper, 15cm x 20cm (6″ x 8″), sold
THEY HAVE BECOME SYNONYMOUS with the Remembrance Day poppy, worn in lapels all over Canada and the U. K. in the early days of November onwards through to the 11th, post-memorial cenotaph services, where, in Canada’s capital, people place their poppy on The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier before departing.
wee glimpses
May 26, 2015
PAINTING OUTDOORS has a way of getting a person to make judgment calls quickly, and in our area it is quite simply the heat of the day.
KAMLOOPS, B.C., IS UNIQUE IN THAT its mountainous hillsides are grass-covered with considerable sagebrush but little tree growth to the 900m level, creating what is known as an inverted tree line.
IN MOST PLACES TREES WON’T GROW above a certain level due to the lack of precipitation, but in Kamloops, they won’t grow below a certain level due to the lack of precipitation. We are known as The Sunshine Capitol of Canada, receiving over 2,000 hours of sun annually.
IOW, IT IS HOT. And since sun and heat are our landscape’s signature features, painting a local watercolour outdoors demands sitting right the heck out there.
THAT IS WHY IT MAKES GREAT SENSE to me to choose to do this by way of painting miniatures.
‘A Kamloops August’, watercolour, 6.35cm x 8.90cm (2.5″ x 3.5″), Arches Hot Press 140 lb. paper
MINIATURES demand quick thinking and choosing the elemental–the scene’s compositional essences–getting them down efficiently and thoughtfully, though, at the same time, quickly.
A GOOD MINIATURE can serve as the template for a much larger, studio piece. And good miniatures stand up very well all by themselves. This particular one has been accepted into two different juried Federation of Canadian Artists Shows, including the annual ‘Small, Smaller, Smallest’. It was, in that show, the very smallest of the lot. And that made me very happy!
eggs as canvas ….
May 5, 2015
DUCK EGGS ARE THE BEST for receiving watercolour pigment. They have a satiny shell surface. Chicken eggs are better if one is using the ancient Ukrainian Orthodox, bees wax, kitska stylus, and dye method.
Chicken eggs have a kind of chalky, calcium-like surface which, yes, can be painted, but feels like the cheaper version of a duck egg. [Oh my, that probably tops your abstruse observation quota for today] Ahem….plowing-on into the arcane . . . a duck egg is more forgiving a surface because removing mistakes is easily accomplished using a Q-tip.
(above) Chicken Egg Christmas ornament using bees wax, Ukrainian kistka stylus and traditional dyes
Watercolour Painted Eggs, (four duck eggs, one goose egg)
Hand-painted Christmas Egg Ornaments, watercolour, with multiple, clear fixative layers applied for protection.
The impetus for exploring eggs as a painting surface came from my having seen, as a child, hand-painted blown eggs with Spring flowers on them, gathered and hung by streams of ribbon for an Easter breakfast within our German church. Their beauty gave me new eyes and I viewed my grade school wax crayon attempts with a certain childish contempt. And it perplexes me still, that such a long ago vision remained an artistic impulse to do for myself what I saw modelled back then.
What has put my egg art enjoyment on (permanent?) hold is my having received two Peacock eggs that I delayed blowing-out….only to have them explode all over the walls and ceiling just as I was finally drifting off to sleep one night, months after they were given to me.
You seriously do not want to know the level of grossness — the vile, rank, and utter foulness — of having to clean up an entire living room punctuated, peppered, with rotten Peacock egg at one o’clock in the morning.
My childhood vision of hand-painted Easter eggs has been forever cataracted by the Peacock eggs from hell.
To hell with Winter . . .
January 26, 2012
Actually, I’m joking. I’m a winter person through and through! This is the Season when I thrill at the photos of my favourite bloggers on ‘WordPress’, whose will is such that they are out there when the pale sun is orangey and the naked trees throw indigo and mauve stripes on the lapis snow. The lone leaf clinging yet to the branch moves me. The icicle tear surrounding a burnt-sienna rosehip speaks of life still sparking inside that crystal casing. Winter is the freezing of time–everything locked in icy suspension while we stand dazzled on chilled mornings over what happened as we slept.
A week ago it was -37C (with the wind chill factored in). Our pipes froze and plumbers had to repair them. The bird feeders were so busy, I had to tend them twice a day. And yet. And yet. And yet I knew even as we risked frostbite to walk our little Bichon dog, Elmo, that under all that concrete ground there were bulbs not only surviving, but actually thriving. The red maple in our yard is busy plumping up its buds. Things are happening, though for humans, an hour out there with little protection is a cruel fate.
But here’s to Summer, in the midst of Winter. Here’s to what I can’t wait to tend to when my favourite Season ends and the growing Season begins.
"Peace"
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