Tag Archives: garden

Dinosaur Park and a Pioneer Garden

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….the park surrounding Dundurn Castle in Hamilton

My granddaughter loves parks and the park surrounding the castle is one of her favourites. She calls it the dinosaur park because the climber has pictures of dinosaurs on it. She’s a great climber and loves the slides and swings. She made sure that her Papa got on a swing as well.

In the far corner of the grounds at Dundurn Castle there lies a large, old fashion garden with flowers, fruit trees and vegetables. Some of the produce is used in the kitchen at the castle and the rest is donated to the city food bank. Much of the produce is true to what was grown in the 19th century. The gardeners were very knowledgeable and wonderful to talk to. I learned a great deal.

A Garden of Spring Flowers in Paint

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….in this part of the world spring is not close at hand

Looking at blogs that originate in Ireland, the United Kingdom, parts of Europe and the west coast of North America I’m amazed to see so many gardens that are already in bloom with beautiful spring flowers. With some luck we may see our first daffodil in late April but most of our flowers won’t appear until May.

To get us in the spring mood I painted some simple made up flowers using watercolours and circle shapes. For the background I used a scraping technique that I learned from Carla Sonheim. Once the paint was dry I added more detail, sometimes with  more paint but mostly with black ink from a Sharpie. I liked the final product so much I adapted it for my students and when I return to school this week I will plaster the walls with their beautiful gardens of flowers. I will share their work with you later this week.

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