The challenge for June is Up and Down

By Susan Irving I had fun setting up this little still life for “Treasure“.

By Yvonne Callaway My mother raised and showed Lhasa Apsos for about 40 years. They were her pride and joy.

I thought it would be fairly quick & easy to knock up a portrait of three of her furry champions as a Christmas gift. Wrong! Took weeks and weeks to capture their individual characters. The many pooches were her treasures and she treasured this painting too.

By Ruth Stanton     Below is my submission for the May challenge. I did consult books and Google; drawings, paintings and photographs to familiarize myself with the plants, but I did not copy anyone else’s designs. These flowers are all freely drawn. I used coloured pencils rather than an HB pencil to outline the flowers so that lines of graphite don’t show in the drawings. I brushed the backgrounds with the shavings from coloured pencils. Most of these flowers grow around me, either as wildflowers or introduced from garden centres. The larkspur is the only flower that is a stranger to me.

Flowers are treasures, so I’m submitting these flowers of the months as my response to the May challenge. 

I have pinks, cousin to the carnation, growing in my garden, I will soon be walking among the violets that grow wild on our slope.

We have Daffodils blooming now but we have to wait for the daisies. 

Lilies of the valley grow among the wild apple trees. I have no wild roses in my garden, just a single yellow rose.

I have no larkspur in my garden, so I had to rely altogether on sources for this flower. My poppies are actually bright orange rather than red.

Asters grow wild all around the slope. I buy my marigolds from garden centres and plant them with my tomatoes. 

I used to have a daisy like chrysanthemum in my garden, very different from this one. A narcissus seems a funny flower to represent December; a host of them are blooming on my slope now.

By Isabelle Utovac I took these photos in Ottawa. The rainbow lasted another 20 minutes after I saw it.

J’ai pris ces photos à Ottawa. L’arc-en-ciel a duré encore 20 minutes après que je l’ai vu.

By Milo Smith Treasure comes in many forms.  Monetary, artistic, national, personal and, no doubt, other forms.  I came across a puppy that had stolen his owner’s hearts and was clearly their “treasure”.