Bubbles and art!

There is nothing better than a nice cool glass of elderflower cordial in the summer, even better when it's mixed with something sparking! It is also the perfect accompaniment to a spot of painting, but first I'll show you how I made my cordial.

I am blessed to have a small elder tree at the bottom of my garden, and this produces enough flowers for me to make a small quantity of cordial whilst still being able to leave a lot of the flowers on the tree to become berries. The name elder is thought to come from 'aeld' the Anglo-saxon meaning for fire.

To make a small amount of elderflower cordial I use:

1 kg of white sugar
1 unwaxed lemon
12 fresh elderflower heads
40g citric acid
and 0.75 litres of water


I put the sugar in a bowl and added boiling water, stirring until the sugar was dissolved. To this I added the lemon and citric acid. I gave the elderflowers a rinse and added these to the bowl. I then left everything to infuse for 24 hours.

I strained the mixture through a large sieve and then again through a smaller one. Once the liquid was clear I put it into sterilised glass bottles ready to store in the fridge.

Now time for some art!

Painting elderflowers using watercolours, drawing ink and acrylic paint.

Drawing inks used to draw the elder branches, masking fluid is used to mask off the areas I want to keep white for the flower buds.
Layers of greens and yellow watercolours are built up to suggest the foliage of the tree and the hints of pale yellow in the flowers.

Using acrylic paint I added a textured layer to suggest the small open elderflowers. I built up textured petals with white acrylic paint and then added hints of green and yellow to suggest the pale yellow areas of the flowers and shadow.

Cheers!

You can find out more about elderflowers and harvesting them in @haphazard-hstead post Elder Flowers - How To Identify Wild Elderberry Shrubs - with tips on harvesting and storing their flowers