The Arrival of Spring and with it the Golden Daffodils

Top right: my watercolour daffy-down-dillies pattern
Bottom row: all the various coordinating patterns
Top left my faux-patchwork pattern using the original desing and some of the coordinates

So now we’re well into March and Spring is definitely well underway here in South-East Wales! 

Lesser Celandine springing up everywhere at the moment -
these are nestled at the foot of one of the mature trees in
Bailey Park, just across the road from me.

A couple of questions have been on my mind and searching the internet has only provided me with partial answers. Maybe you can help me out with the second one?

Forsythia in my rather wild
front garden

Question 1 – why are so many of the early spring flowers yellow? 

There are primroses, crocuses, forsythia and of course, the 'host of golden daffodils' that Wordsworth celebrates!

A Google search quickly revealed that bees and other flying insects are attracted to yellow and that helps the plants to pollinate and ensure the survival of the species. (Later in the year, when flowers are more multi-coloured, the centres, where the pollen is held, are still invariably yellow).

This also answers the question of why my yellow crocuses are pecked to death by the birds, whereas the purple ones are left free to grow undisturbed – the birds are after the insects that were attracted to the yellow flowers!

Here you can see the damaged remains of the
yellow crocuses in contrast to the thriving purple ones!

But I couldn’t find an answer to my second question –

Question 2 – why are the yellow flowers normally followed by blue and purple ones? 

Voilets, bluebells, purple crocuses, harebells, irises - and of course this wonderful purple Aubretia, that has escaped from my garden and attached itself to the huge hedge of evergreens that runs down the side of my house.

My runaway Aubretia thrives on the outside of my hedge where it gets plenty of sun.
Don't you just love flowers that spread outside of their boundaries, sharing
their loveliness with passers-by! (I'm training my climbing roses and honeysuckle to do that too.)

I'm sure Mother Nature has her reasons for blue to follow yellow! 

Anybody know the answer?

 

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Can YOU wear Pantone Colour: Lemon Zest Yellow

What is the first thing you think of when YELLOW is mentioned? 

Is it the colour of dying grass and leaves or white pages, ‘yellowing with age? Or worse still, the medical condition known as ‘jaundice’ (the French word for yellow is ‘jaune’)? The flag flown on a quarantine ship is yellow. And even more negative - ever since mediaeval artists portrayed Judas Iscariot wearing yellow, the colour has been associated with cowardice and treachery!

But I feel pretty sure that most of us won’t think of these things. 

We’re far more likely to think of the ‘yellow’ of the sun or, in springtime, of Easter Chicks and the many yellow spring flowers! Primroses, crocuses, forsythia, winter jasmine and of course the many varieties of the daffodil family.


Because pure yellow is a very cheerful colour. 

Of interest to artists may be the fact that

yellow has the highest reflectivity of all the

colours, appearing to advance, 
in contrast to blue, which recedes. 

Some delicious foods are yellow, for example, butter and cheese. And many of the foods that are good for us are yellow too, containing Vitamins A and C and sometimes iron as well: plums, grapefruit, melons, lemons . . .

Interesting pattern too!

As a fashion item, Lemon Zest yellow first came to my attention when it was worn as a jacket by one of our BBC Wales newsreaders. And it seemed so bright that it certainly grabbed my attention!

According to my big book about Colours, yellow is ‘not as universally flattering to most complexions as, say, blue.’ I think I would agree with that on the whole, though our newsreader does have the right complexion to wear it. I just think it made perhaps too much of a statement for a newsreader, detracting from the content of the news!

But that is what yellow can do – like its cousin, orange, it can grab our attention and that quality is put to good use in warning signs and visibility jackets.

Yellow cars have been shown 

to be involved in fewer accidents,

 probably due to their

high visibility. 

So yes, yellow serves to warn us of danger but at the same time it can seem to radiate sunshine, happiness, even joy!

But although I have painted some of the walls in my house a kind of yellow ochre, and I love the golden yellow of sunflowers, buttercups and cornfields, I tend to avoid lemon yellow.

To me, lemon yellow seems tart and brittle. In fact, once, in a life drawing class, I really didn’t like the model and afterwards I found I had instinctively used a lot of lemon yellow pastel in my painting – a colour I rarely use at all! It was only later that I read Kandinsky's words, quoted in a book about the Bauhaus: 'Yellow advance, exceeds limits, is aggressive, active, volatile . . . ' - a pretty close description of the model I'd taken a dislike to!

How do you feel about yellow? 

Do you use it much in your artwork?

Do you wear yellow or use it to decorate your home?