Pammy's art demonstration, Sunday Dec 22, from 2-4pm

Here's a quick little reminder for Sydney-based Garden Amateur blog readers, that tomorrow afternoon, Sunday December 22, from 2-4pm, Pam will be doing a live demonstration of how she works on a botanical painting at the Eden Gardens Garden Centre, at Lane Cove Road, North Ryde. So, if you're in the area, drop in and check out Pam's solo art exhibition, "Inspiration & Observation", and come on over to say hello. We'd love to meet some of our lovely blog readers, and I know you'll enjoy Pam's exhibition and demonstration.

Here's a few examples of the pieces she has in her show, which has 52 artworks for sale in all. And here's a link to her new website, which has many more images to browse.

Pammy's art show

This year has gone by so fast for both Pammy and myself, partly because it has been so eventful in a positive way. For Pam, it has been an incredibly busy year, partly because she has been working hard to complete the 52 paintings which are on show now at the Eden Gardens Art Gallery, which is inside the Eden Gardens Centre on Lane Cove Road in North Ryde, here in Sydney. edengardens.com.au

Tomorrow afternoon (Sunday December 8) from 2-4pm we are having a nice little 'opening' event (with the usual gourmet cheese, wine and crackers) so if any gardening blog readers who are in the area want to come along and say "hello", please feel very welcome to do so. I'd love to meet some of my blog readers, and so would Pammy.

Here's your official 'invite' to the show. It's
on from now until January 8, so there is
plenty of time to pop in and have a look.

Pictured below is a small sample of Pammy's work that will be for sale at her solo show (an original artwork makes a great Christmas gift!). She works in a variety of mediums, including watercolours, pencil and linocuts, and her treatment of each subject differs depending on how she responds to it. You can also see more of Pam's artwork at her new website, www.pamelahorsnell.wordpress.com
AND, Pam will be back at the Eden Gardens Gallery on December 22, from 2-4pm, doing a demonstration of how she works. So if you can't make it to the opening tomorrow, this is another good opportunity to pop in and say hello. We'd love to meet you.

Spanish flower shows

The first time I spotted a Spanish moss flower it was on a computer screen. I had taken some pix of my Spanish moss plant and noted tiny green flecks on the screen image as I uploaded them to my Mac. I hadn't noticed them out in the garden while taking the photos. So I headed back outside and discovered the source of the green flecks: teensy little perfectly formed flowers in all their micro glory. That was back in October one year, so now every October Pammy and I are on the lookout for our smallest flower show to begin. 

This is the best way I could think of to show you how tiny the
flowers are on Spanish moss. That lump of lumber in the
foreground is an ordinary matchstick. We're talking tiny
flowers here, folks.

Regular readers of our blog will know that my girl Pammy
is a botanical artist, and this is her watercolour painting of
a Spanish moss bloom which will be in her solo exhibition that
runs from December 4, 2013 to January 8 at Eden Gardens in
North Ryde, Sydney. At the end of this blog posting you can
find all the details of Pam's exhibition. We'd love everyone
to come along to the opening on Sunday, December 8.

Until then, I just wanted to show you a few more images of this fascinating plant, whose botanical name is Tillandsia usneoides. Its common names of Spanish moss and old man's beard paint the picture well. This is one of the so-called 'air plants' because it doesn't need soil to grow in. It just hangs from the boughs and branches of trees and gets all its nutrients from the air, the rain and general humidity. Presumably it also gets some of the nutrient-rich run-off from the trees which host its existence. And no, it's not a parasite plant. It just hitches a ride. We saw it everywhere we went as we travelled around the Southern USA back in 2011, and it's one of the special plants in our garden, pretty in its own right but also full of sweet memories.

This photo above, and the one below, show the basic form
of the tiny flowers.

Out in the garden from this far away (about
four feet) you'd never notice the blooms.

There is a bloom in this photo, roughly
in the centre of the shot. Can you see it?

Surely you can see it now?

Once you spot an individual bloom it seems as pretty as any
flower a hundred times larger, and the world of fine, grey
strands in which it lives is a magical addition to the scene.

Now, here's the details of Pam's exhibition: over to you, Pammy...

You can see this close-up watercolour painting of a Spanish moss flower along with 50 other artworks inspired by plants and the natural world featured in my upcoming solo exhibition: “Inspiration & Observation”.

The exhibition will run from 4 December 2013 to 8 January 2014 in the Eden Gardens Art Gallery at the Eden Gardens Garden Centre located at 301-307 Lane Cove Road, North Ryde: www.edengardens.com.au

Jamie and I will be attending the exhibition opening from 2-4pm on Sunday December 8, so come along to say hello and maybe pick up an original Christmas gift for a friend, family member or yourself!

View from the gallery

I really should have asked my PR agent Gulliver to handle this blog posting, but he's busy pulling weeds out of the succulent patch for me this cloudy, drizzly morning, so I'll step in and handle this little publicity assignment. 

Pammy is opening her second solo exhibition tomorrow afternoon in the art gallery at the Eden Gardens Garden Centre on Lane Cove Road in North Ryde (it's huge, you can't miss it), and if you'd like to combine a visit to a fab garden centre with a bit of art gallery browsing, please drop by and say "hello" if you're in the area. We're going to be there from about 2pm onwards.

Pam's exhibition is called 'The Backyard, Balcony and Beyond'
 and I guess this image of a Halloween display she spotted in
New York qualifies in the 'beyond' category!  

Pam had a super-successful first solo exhibition here at Eden Gardens last year, and in the last few months she's been hard at work painting for this show (as well as for the group exhibition which she just completed at Gallery Red in Glebe).

While her Gallery Red exhibition focused on our American travels, this solo show at Eden Gardens is much more focused on our garden and plants in general, although she loves food and cooking so much these are part of the mix, too. I'm hopelessly biased, of course, and I love her work as much as I love her (which is with all my heart), but I really do think my Pammy has a wonderfully distinctive eye and style. If you can't make it tomorrow, hopefully you might be able to drop in sometime between now and when the show closes, on October 31.

It's a funny little world we blog-writers and blog-readers live in, meeting each other online every day or so, but actually saying hello rarely or never happens. So if you do get a chance to drop by, please don't be shy. Come on over and say hello. It'd be a thrill to meet a few real-live blog readers!

Pam's first art show

Wow, what a wonderful day it was! Pammy's first solo art exhibition, and at the end of the first day she has sold 16 of the 32 paintings in the show.

Such a thrill for both of us, and the memorable bonus on the day was the stream of friends who showed up to say hello. Such a lovely, friend-filled day.

We're already talking about Pammy's next exhibition, when we get back from America. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, here's my little blog-report on this marvellous day for my darling girl (and if Sydney readers are interested in having a look, you can combine it with some garden shopping, as the exhibition is at the art gallery that's within the Eden Gardens centre on Lane Cove Road, North Ryde, and it's on from now until September 28). On with the show...

Three friends wanted to buy this one, so it was first in best dressed (well done, Eric and Jane!). It's not exactly typical of Pammy's work, but then again, the theme of her first exhibition was the diversity of styles she works with.

The red dot shows that it's 'sold' and this very simple one of a chook actually sold before the show even opened; the person setting up the exhibition liked it so much she bought it that day. Pammy came home beaming from the 'set up day', saying "I've already sold one!" She had such low expectations that this sale was almost a shock to her. 'Nonsense darling, you'll sell heaps of them', I opined, and for once I've been proved right!

Pam found this giant bean pod (it's over a foot long) in a local park and liked it so much she did a drawing of it. Over the week or so that she did the drawing, the pod opened and the seed fell out. It's from Castanospermum australe, the black bean tree, a native of Australian rainforests.

This and the next few shots can all be entitled 'different styles' because that's what's on display.

The one on the left here is one of her '10-minute' paintings, done as quick watercolour impressions as practice for our travels. She's bringing a traveller's painting kit with her to America, a small watercolour pad and we'll see what she comes up with when we get back. (Well, hopefully I'll at least get some sneak previews along the way, but me hovering while she's painting isn't exactly a good move on my part.)

The one on the left here was another popular one where one friend gazumped another by buying it while the other lined up to buy. It's of a native noisy miner on our Eucalyptus leucoxylon 'Rosea' street tree.

One the left, some of Pammy's favourite flowers, lisianthus, and on the right, hello possum.

It being her first art show, Pammy did everything right. Cheese platter? Tick!

Fruit platter? Tick!

Flowers for the table? Tick! Well, to give credit where it's due, the fab fruit and cheese platters (along with champagne, wine and mineral water etc) were supplied by the very friendly and efficient caterers at the Dragonfly Cafe at Eden Gardens, who do a booming business in lunches at their very pleasant (and quite big and airy) cafe. Even when we came up midweek to hang the paintings, the joint was jumping, so it's a popular spot for people to do some quality garden shopping, then adjourn to the cafe for equally good quality refreshments.

We had friends dropping in all Saturday afternoon, and that was such a big part of making this day so memorable.

Pammy had sent invitations far and wide, hoping that a few would come, and virtually everyone she contacted showed up. It was like being at a wedding, seeing so many old friends who we hadn't seen for a couple of years (one old motorcycling mate of mine, John and his wife, Deborah, we hadn't seen for 10 years, even though the Christmas cards have been flowing steadily all that time. I guess the lesson is 'never lose touch with old friends' and the longer the gap between get togethers just makes those grand reunions all the more wonderful). So a big thanks to everyone who took the trouble to come along (some drove over 100km to the show), but it was also such a pleasure for Pam's mum, also an accomplished artist herself, to be there to see her daughter's first art show go so well.

Before I sign off, for Sydney readers I can easily recommend a visit to Eden Gardens if you haven't been there already. It really is an exceptional garden centre, very big, beautifully laid out and a lovely spot to visit for a bit of garden browsing and relaxing afterwards in the cafe.

As I mentioned earlier, the Dragonfly Cafe is large and well-run. There is plenty of indoor seating, but the dining areas extend out into the gardens as well. Everywhere you look there is garden art and interesting planters. They've done it so well here.

They present plants for sale very pleasingly in so many spots, but this stand of kangaroo paws caught my eye, and judging by the gaps in the display, it has caught the eye of shoppers there, too.

Finally, for Sydney readers, a linky to the Eden Gardens website, which includes info on getting there, plus in the 'What's On' calendar section, a little rundown on Pammy's exhibition.