Sale This Saturday at East Falls Inn Yard Park, 10-5

I'm getting ready for a sale next weekend and I ordered prints and I'm really excited by the variety of images from all my recent trips to wildlife refuges, woods, parks, etc. I forgot completely about the sunset images I took in New Hope and I haven't thought about the Adirondacks pictures in a month, then I added Ocean City pictures from this year and the tree walk (see below) and waterfalls from Ithaca, NY and then some pictures from my trip to Awbury Arboretum on Friday!

Persimmon tree in Secret Garden

Fungus Layers

Magnolia Leaves

First tree to turn

Come join me! I'll be selling cards, magnets, matted and framed photos! Oh, and I'm selling recycled notebooks with tree photos on the covers!

20% off all items in both stores

This Weekend Only!

http://www.allisonostertag.etsy.com/

http://www.allisonspaintings.etsy.com/

Tonight from 7-10 pm at Studio 34 on Baltimore Ave. at 45th street.

I donated a print that will be in the silent auction!

Guided Tree Walk in Fairmount Park

Mr. Sibley with Sweet Bay Magnolia Fruit

Bur Oak

Linden

Sawtooth Oak Acorn

Bur Oak Leaves

Fruit Laden Linden Branches

Fringe Tree Fruit

Pin Oak

Swamp White Oak

Sweet Gum Leaves

I was really excited to see that the author of the Sibley Guide to Trees, David Sibley was leading a walk in Fairmount Park as part of the author events for the Philadelphia Free Library. After meeting at the Recreation center at the start of Boathouse Row we walked into the Azalea Garden and he showed us the ways you can look at acorns and other fruit, branch direction, leaf shape, bark texture, overall tree shape and leaf arrangement to determine what tree you're looking at. We stopped at about 10 trees including a Bur Oak, Swamp Bay Magnolia, Red Oak, Linden, Ginko and Kentucky Coffee Tree.

I was amazed to find out he paints every illustration in his books and he still does not consider himself an expert in trees, despite working on this guide for 7 years. His bird guides he painted in gouache, but he found that impossible to use when painting lights and darks in trees, so he had to teach himself how to use acrylics for this book.

There was a big group of people on the walk and I was the youngest member by 30 years until a group of three college aged girls showed up. There were two actresses at the event, maybe they are filming some movie locally? but the rest of the group were birders and nature lovers (why are they all so old?).

Window Boxes and Sidewalk Planters

Window boxes around the neighborhood:

And planters on the sidewalk:

New Tote In Floral Fabric and Circles My mom said looked like the inside of the human body!

I decided to make a tote for myself for the summer and picked out the fabric, cut out the shapes, but had no working sewing machine, so I finally sewed it up last night when I visited my mom's house.

My mom said the inside looked like the inside of the human body, which it does kind of look like platelets and red blood cells, but it also reminds me of a watermelon with a green exterior and a pink interior.

Hopefully it will function well as a daily bag for work. I overdid it a bit buying fabric, so I could make about 20 in different colors, so I'll have plenty if I decid to make adjustments to the size or pockets...

Painting in Progress on Native Plants

I placed an order with Yellow Springs Nursery and I was so excited to see the plants I bought and to plan my garden at West Philly High School, I decided to make a painting of the plants we selected. The sketches came from looking at my garden in Spring Gardens and the Wildflower Guide helped me with the rest of them. I should be done by the end of the week!

The plants arrived today and we planted them in the beds!

Garden Update--Check out these tomatoes!

These are the same plants I bought from Happy Cat Organics that I posted about below. They are humongous now! I just hope they turn red someday!

Edible Schoolyard and Shopping Local

I just ordered Edible Schoolyard by Alice Waters from the Penn Book Center (not the bookstore, but the Indie bookstore on 34th and Sansom). I'm getting really excited about building a garden at West Philly High School this summer, so I am buying books on all the ways to prepare every vegetable under the sun and I figured I would buy Alice Water's book since she was the first person who got me thinking about gardens as food sources and community builders at public schools.

Thinking about buying locally, (not from the Penn Bookstore which is owned by Barnes & Noble), Sansom Street between 34th and 36th streets is a great local shopping enclave that is dissapearing as we speak. The Saturn Club will close its cafe in about a week and focus on Salon space. Bucks County Coffee closed its doors on this block about a year ago (and the other stores were bought by Saxby's), The Black Cat gift shop is closing its doors and has been selling off all their stock since Christmas and the White Dog Cafe has been bought out by the folks who run Moshulu.

On the upside, AVRIL 50 is still going strong after 25 years and has every magazine you love but is hard to find at the big box stores or CVSes (Bust, Ready Made, European magazines, every subject you can think of) and espresso drinks, teas and gourmet import chocolates. It really is a place you need to see to believe. Decorated with covers of Interview magazines from the early 90's, he also carries notecards, International newspapers, wrapping paper, black and white postcards, calenders and planners. Located at 3406 Sansom Street.