Lavender

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Welcome. Autum is in the air in Southern California and my garden has taken on the look of fall. Today I picked the last of my lavender and fragrant sage to dry. I love the tangy smell of sage and the lavender flowers remind me of the fragrent lavender fields in Provence in the South of France. I was inspired to post about lavender by a visit to Ruth Welter's beautiful blog, artful-creations.blog.spot.com, and was struck by the fact that no matter what part of the world you visit, the colors of mother nature are the same and how similiar the colors in her photographs of Zion National Park in Utah were with my photographs of the lavender fields in Provence. Both of our photograhs show soft greens and shades of umber, ocher and lavender - the colors of nature and the inspirations for our photographs. You must visit her blog to see her georgous photographs of nature taken in Utah.

I am very new at blogging (this is my 3rd post) and still learning to use my new scanner to scan some of my "nondigital" photos to share with you. After many tries I was able to scan one lavender field only to find that I was unable to enlarge it to show you.

I decided to post without showing the inspiration photos of lavender fields in France and show you other photos of inspirations.

Sage flowers drying in the sun

Paintings inspired by a trip to Provence in the South of France where the skies are blue, the hills are carpeted with sunflowers and lavender and the air is filled with the heady scent of lavender

Sunflowers and lavender fields

"The Lavender Harvest" - insiration by lavender fields.



"Blue Shutters"


"Sunflowers and Lavender"
"The Girl on the Red Bicycle"


A yummy receipe for lavender sugar brought home from Provence.

Bentley ( my studio assistant) waiting to get his taste of rasein bread with lavender sugar.


Lavender Sugar
Combine 1 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup fresh organic or cullinary lavender heads. Place the mixture in a sealed container for about one week. When ready to use, sift the sugar to separate it from the lavender. . The sugar can be sprinkled on sugar cookies, ceral or toast or used to flavor your tea and lemonade

Lavender sugar sprinkled on rasein toast.

A friend gave me the web address of a beautiful farm in Sequim, Washington that grows organic lavender. You may want to check out:http://purplehazelavender.com/ for their "cooking with lavender guide" as well as their blog.