Me and Mr. Bee

Augie’s pet portrait and Monarda in the garden

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 04:53:32 +0000

Late this spring I purchased a bare root Peter’s Purple Monarda online (read “ebay”), it looked a bit sad on arrival but I planted it in the garden and hoped for the best. The summer was brutal and the Peter’s Purple didn’t make it, and with it being hard to find in local nurseries I gave up on trying it again. Luckily, Daphne Richards, who talked about Mojito on Central Texas Gardner (Thank you, Linda!), said she had some extras to dig up and give away from her large Peter’s Purple. Daphne wants to raise awareness for this bee balm and make it more readily available for central Texas. I jumped on the chance to try Peter’s Purple again after seeing how beautiful it looked when established, and painted her a quick portrait of her Augie Doggie as a thank you gift.

I’ll keep track of the Peter’s Purple, and will share more garden photos soon.

Mirrors illustration completed

Tina Poe Illustration — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 03:49:24 +0000

Finally! I’m sure David is as relieved as I am to have this piece finished. We can move on to some new collaborative pieces that hopefully won’t take two years to complete.

so close to finishing mirrors

Tina Poe Illustration — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:47:01 +0000

Where did this year go? How can it be June already? The days are passing me by way too quickly but I have been trying to find little pockets of time here and there to work on the Mirror illustration and it’s pretty close to being completed, though I still feel pretty embarrassed about how long it has been sitting around unfinished. Here is a small detail crop of one of the finished sections, a little teaser to hold you over for a bit longer!

starfish vendor sketch

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 04:21:51 +0000

A quick peek into my next illustration project, I haven’t figure out all of the details yet, but I’m planning on more of them.

finished fawn

creature of the night

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 03:43:51 +0000

A genius tumblr blog was featured on Drawn the other day called Meowoodle. It is a simple blog where illustrators and designers can submit doodles of their cats.

What could be better? Nothing! I painted a quick doodle of Mojito, my ~~little~~ big creature of the night, my loud meowing shadow with glowing yellow green eyes, my baby. I sent it in as a submission and hopefully will see it on Meowoodle soon.

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Portrait in the sun

Tina Poe Illustration — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 04:48:51 +0000

Last time we went hiking, I took a photo of David as he turned his head up toward the sun. He hated the photo, but I thought the expression was fantastic and it served as a good reference point for this quick gesture portrait.

He has been drawing me pretty regularly, so I wanted to join in and paint him more often too. I had also downloaded a new brush set by Chris Whal that I wanted to try out. Overall, not a bad little quicky that scratched my creative itch today.

My First Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day

Tina Poe Illustration — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:39:04 +0000

On the 15th of every month, Carol from May Dreams Gardens hosts the Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, where she invites garden bloggers from all over to show us what is blooming in their gardens.

I have been been looking at GBBD by the Austin garden bloggers for a couple of years now, but never participated because I didn’t think I had enough to show on any given bloom day. I’ve been slowly acquiring plants in the garden over the last few few years, and the number of plants that don’t die instantly is growing. I was finally excited to participate in GBBD today, so I got out my camera and patiently took some closeups that I was happy with.

I have wanted coneflower since I first saw them in 2007. I’m going to try to take really good care of this one so that it will multiply for me and fill up the garden more.

I bought a scraggly looking blackfoot daisy last year, but it didn’t make it. There are many plants I give up on after killing them, but I decided to give this another shot because I think they are cute, and I heard they are so easy. This one was blooming when I got it, and it is still blooming. I even found a baby piece that fell off when I was planting it.

I planted the baby piece on the other side of the dry creek bed, and it started blooming too!

Two years ago I saw coral nymph salvia at Red Barn Nursery and fell in love, I brought it home and it bloomed non stop until the freeze of 2009. I read that it would reseed but I didn’t have any popping up the next year, I also didn’t find it at the nursery so I was lonely without this pink beauty. I was very excited when I saw it again this year and grabbed one. Maybe this year it will reseed for me?

I also saw this red salvia coccinea (forgot the name now…) next to the Coral Nymph. The flower spikes are compact and beautiful red, I bought two of these and planted all three coccinea in a triangle shape.

For fun I also grabbed a small everbearing strawberry plant. It has a baby strawberry on it, and the blooms are more beautiful than I thought they would be.

I’m looking forward to sharing a lot more of my garden bloom photos next month!

bird portrait

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:14:04 +0000

I babysat a Cintiq 21UX this weekend. And by that I mean, I tested it out and played with it all day long. I working on a small painting and saw a big improvement in painting speed in a short amount of time. It was a lot of fun working with the large 21 inch screen, but I didn’t have a good place for it so it took a while to figure out a comfortable sitting position. My neck hurts a bit, but I’m still looking forward to testing it out further.

Quick hike

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 21:25:20 +0000

A quick hike at the Bull Creek Greenbelt Park. We got out of the house as soon as the weather was nicer, and enjoyed every minute of being in nature.

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my Frida

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:10:07 +0000

I started and finished a quick painting today, redoing Frida Kahlo’s “Self Portrait Dedicated to Dr. Eloesser“. Redoing a famous painting was this week’s Monday Artday challenge. And since I had recently watched Julie Taymor’s Frida and was so moved by the film, it was an easy choice.

I learned that the earrings she is wearing in this painting were given to her by Pablo Picasso… jeaaallloouuus!

Adrien Brody in The Darjeeling Limited

Benefits of marriage

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:34:02 +0000

I highly recommend marrying someone who loves to bake. Somehow, eating homemade sweets doesn’t leave me feeling as guilty about the caloric consumption as buying and eating a pie, cake, or cookies from the bakery. It must be the magic ingredient of love baked in.

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Happy January

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 04:50:23 +0000

I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the new year. January is a great month, full of hope and promises! I promised to paint more than I did last year, and when Moj heard this he requested a new portrait. I couldn’t refuse him, of course. I finished a quick one, seen above, it’s aptly titled “Portrait of a Giant”.

morning glory and mulch

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 04:08:45 +0000

I always take photos long before I post them here, but better late than never!
I planted Pearly Gates Morning Glory along with Moonflower seeds back in the spring, and the vines soon covered the gazebo arch that I purchased in the spring of 2009. I was excited for blooms.

Soon, the vines went nutso and wouldn’t stop climbing, and the only blooms I saw were a few moonflowers later in the summer. They climbed into the neighbors tree and taller than the second story. I didn’t think the Pearly Gates morning glory had even made it.

Then, as Fall arrived I started seeing smaller white blooms in the evening that lasted to the next day, it took me a while to realize that these were the Pearly Gates blooms. The vines were freaking me out by climbing so far, and I didn’t want them to go to seed and spread all over the back yard like the purple morning glory that came over from the neighbor and spreads each year. That purple morning glory is a big pest! So, I tried digging up all of the roots of the Pearly Gates and moonflower. The Pearly Gates didn’t want to give up that easily and kept blooming for a few weeks after I dug up the roots…. freaaakky! Now I need to figure out how to get all of the dead vines out of the neighbor’s tree.

A couple of weeks ago we mulched and mulched, brought all of the pots in for the winter, and got everyone ready for their winter rest.

The Salvia Teresa is looking greener, from blooming after planting and then looking brown.

The Mexican Oregano is still sad and tiny, not enough light,

I wouldn’t mind the confederate jasmine climbing more!

Jasminum sambac back from the dead.

Oxbloods from my coworker.

I love cooking with lemon thyme, I hope this one starts growing again instead of biting the dust.

low blood sugar

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 22:01:06 +0000

If I don’t eat at regular intervals, David is usually the one who has to deal with my hysteria until I get fed again. It’s like Gremlins, except instead of not feeding after midnight, you must feed me every 4 hours. Ggrraawwrr!

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shifting the blame

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 05:38:49 +0000

Have the mosquitoes finally gone? I am putting all of the blame on them, they are the reason several of my plants have died.
I hadn’t been outside in the garden very much in these last few months. Every time I stepped outside the mosquitoes ate me alive, and their bites stayed red and itchy for at least 2 weeks after the initial attack. Not going outside regularly made my watering/fertilizing schedule random and sparse. I also went overboard with the fertilizer one day hoping to make up for not fertilizing regularly this summer…needless to say, several plants died, and I still feel very guilty.

Something that I can’t blame the mosquitoes for, my jasminum sambac came back from the roots even after I thought it was dead and had pulled it out of the ground after our frost earlier this year. It’s still very small, but hopefully next year it will grow to be its original size.

Oregano
Lemon balm
English thyme
Skullcap
Blackfoot daisy

Salvia greggii Theresa (purchased from the Wildflower Center)
Lemon thyme (moved it to a new spot and it’s angry at me)

I did go out and plant winecup seeds after the mosquitoes subsided a little.
David helped build out the dry creek bed some more, I just need more rocks to fill it now.

On craigslist, I picked up a lot of free nice looking flattish rocks, some with smooth holes in them.

David used them to build stepping stones around the garden, a mini path, and some stacked rock sculptures.

I’ve decided that it’s time to stop looking at new plants. My garden is far too small to have much variety at all. I need to plant more of what I already have to create harmony with repetition. It’s a sad realization. I think I need to buy a new house already, one on a large plot, with tons of huge windows to look out on the beautiful gardens I’ll create. Or maybe, once I finish the back garden a bit more, I’ll start ripping out some grass in the front and make a new bed.

Even with the realizations that I should not be getting any new plants, I just “happened” upon a piece of what I think is purple (fuchsia?) trailing lantana. I love purple and fuchsia colors in my little garden. Maybe I’ll find a spot for this guy, if he takes root.

Also, happy first wedding anniversary to me and David!

Mojito, my garden companion, sitting between one of the bowling ball bees, two mexican feathergrass, and one cat solar light.

Mojito, walking toward one of the new flat rocks and the solar cat light which is next to the Theresa Salvia Greggii.

The oxblood lilies my coworker gave me, I planted them around the dry creek bed edges.

View of the larger section of the dry creek bed, horseherb in the front, and the returning Jasmine in the back. On the right side, you can see a peek of the mini path, and the unhappy lemon thyme.

More of the mini path, unhappy lemon thyme, and the large pot that I put more spearmint into, since the catnip didn’t thrive there (and once it started growing more, I killed with too much fertilizer), surrounded by horseherb and another bowling ball bee.

I still haven’t cooked with the lemongrass in the corner, but Mojito loves to munch on it, so I am happy. I’m putting my rock plant markers to good use as you can see. There is also a new greek oregano growing in front of the lemongrass.

The purple salvia greggii put on a nice show for a short while.

One of the two rock stacks next to the sad looking mexican oregano, I think he needs more sun.

oxblood lily victory

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 16:52:16 +0000

I thought that it was time to finally give up on the few oxblood lily bulbs that I purchased and planted back in 2008. The leaves always grew, but I never saw any hint of flowers.

This year, I once again saw all of the Austin garden bloggers posting beautiful photos of their oxblood lilies and felt hopeless. Wallowing in my misery, I went outside to admire my “prairie sunset” rain lilies in an attempt to make myself feel somewhat better, and saw a suspicious dark red flower bud next to my dark pink rain lily buds. Excitement started to build, and I wondered if it could really be an oxblood lily.

It was! And then there were several of them, beautiful small pops of color, a lot smaller than I had expected. They are the same height as my rain lilies, I guess that a couple years of waiting had made my anticipation and imagination grow the oxbloods to some large majestic size.

I was elated regardless of their small size, I enjoyed seeing them every day that the blooms graced my miniature front garden. A few weeks later, one of my coworkers mentioned how she loves taking seeds off of her neighborhood plants, so I brought her a bunch of morning glory and four o’clock seeds. She thanked me by bringing a large bag of bulbs that she explained were from a dark red lily that grew all over her south Austin house. I showed her a photo of an oxblood lily and she said it was the same!

I’m planning to place these on the edges of my dry creek bed, and maybe I will move the ones from the front to the back as well. I now know that I have to be more patient with the smaller bulbs, and give them time to grow. I’m already excited to see the flowers again next year.

stone plant markers

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:55:15 +0000

I’d been looking for garden plant markers on and off for a while but never found any that I truly loved. Occasionally, I would keep the little plastic tags that came with the plants I bought, but they weren’t pretty so most of the time I would end up tossing them, and then kicking myself for not remembering what exactly I had bought or where I had planted it.

Last weekend, I got to work and made my own painted stone garden markers! I love how they turned out, and they were so fun to make that I’m planning on making more for my etsy shop.

the poe reception

Tina Poe Illustration — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:11:23 +0000

This May, David and I put together a casual wedding reception for our friends and family to enjoy with us.

Since we had gotten married in November of last year, by the Justice of the Peace, everyone wanted a party to celebrate us making it official.

David and I don’t like big traditional weddings, so we made everything simple. We rented a pavilion at Landa Park in New Braunfels, TX, a park that I always have fond memories of. We made and put together our own invitations, decorations, and favors. I didn’t want to deal with the food, so we got that catered.

My favorite part of planning the reception was creating the favors that also served as table decorations. I had gathered a large collection of glass jars that I hadn’t figured out what to do with yet, and David was threatening to throw into the recycling, so I started looking online for inspiration. I found wedding decoration photos that took cuttings of plants and made planters as gifts. Perfect! Outside instantly, I took cuttings of my mints, rosemary, lavender, thymes, basil, oregano, catnip, and lemon balm. David found some wide purple ribbon to reuse and tie around the glass jars, which started our color pallet. The design work for the invites, thank you cards, and the planter tags was done by David, and on the back of the tags he wrote out the common and botanical names for the cuttings. Everything came together perfectly and everyone enjoyed themselves. We couldn’t have asked for more.

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rusty at drawing

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:47:02 +0000

Recently I went to a life drawing session and boy did I feel rusty.

David has been going more recently, and his drawings are looking great, so he suggested that I go with him when ever I can. I’ll need to go a lot more often to rebuild my drawing skills. This one was a 18″x24″ study, prisma color pencils on purple charcoal paper.

family portrait

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:26:51 +0000

My team at work set up a wall where everyone posted photos of their family. I thought it would be a great idea for me to paint a family portrait for the wall instead of posting a photo, and it WOULD have been great if I had finished the painting within a reasonable amount of time.

Instead, three months later, I finally get around to finishing it. I did most of the painting work in one day, which is sad because I dragged my feed for so long.

David gave me quick sketch, and I started laying down color, and working on David’s face.

I then took my ridiculously long break from this painting, came back, reworked the poses and added more elements. Finishing in one day was exciting.

This piece is posted on our illustrated portrait studio website, as well as the Red Tie Studios blog. I also added it to my illustration portfolio.