Painting Gardens for New Zealand Insects

A Garden for the Insects

I have just made a new painting of a wild garden.  I have been thinking about the value of wild gardens and unmown roadside verges as they provide such good habitat for insect life and food for birds.  Yesterday I spotted a little blue butterfly in our own garden, an unusual visitor especially in the very hot day weather which we are now experiencing.  They are common in pasture land where they feed on the wild flowers, but our own lawn is now completely dry and brown.  My puarangi or native hibiscus is the only plant thriving in our heat and sandy soil at present.

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blog

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

A New Red Spanish Frock

Thinking of the Infanta Magarita

I made some new photographs for 2015, this is one of them - a mantua bringing to mind the paintings made in the Spainish court by Goya in the eighteenth century.  It is titled Mantle 27 from my series by the same name. 

I like to view it as an attempt return to the natural world from our most artificial extremes.

But I love the shape of the mantua and its forceful presence and the way it draws attention to the  the bearing and stance of the wearer.  It must have been a difficult garment for a child to wear.

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blog

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015

Taupata leaves

Taupata leaves in the Summer

 

I painted these taupata leaves showing Autumn colours during the Summer.  They had fallen from the small tree and were carpeting the ground around the trunk, the tree itself was sporting bright green shiny leaves so I could only imagine that these had been lost because of a dry spell.

The taupata is a shiny leaved coprosma which grows in coastal areas around the North Island of New Zealand and in the north of the South Island too.  It is very hardy and withstands salt winds and drought conditions for long periods, I have an affection for these tough stragglers, their fallen leaves vary in colour from brilliant yellow to deep purple.  After flowering they produce bright orange berries for the birds.

 

 

 

This is part of a much larger work.

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blog

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015