Spring | InsideMyNest

7 May 20257 May 2025

Of Robins & Rain: A Story of Spring Awakening

March

💧The First Raindrop…

There is something magical about the first raindrop of the season. The air is cool, still holding the whisper of winter, but the raindrop has no hesitation. It lands on the tip of a budding branch, causing the tiny leaf to shiver, and then falls down to the earth below causing a gentle splash sound.

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In the midst of this quiet moment, a robin appears—his red feathers a gentle splash of colour against the grey/brown backdrop. He seems unbothered by the drizzle, even as the drops begin to fall faster, filling the air with the scent of wet earth and fresh beginnings. The robin stands tall, puffing out his chest, his feathers a little damp, but his song unwavering. There is a story to be told here, in the rhythm of his song—a story of patience, of resilience, and of renewal.

🎵 A Robin’s Chorus…

The rain has been falling for days now, but there is a kind of music in it. The robin sings through the downpour, his voice rising above the drumming of the rain. The melody is soft at first, hesitant—like a whisper. But soon, it gains strength, filling the air with a symphony of new life. Each note is like a raindrop in itself, falling and rising in perfect harmony.

The Robin’s Song 🎵

The garden, now a little muddy, seems alive with the sound of the robin’s song. It’s as though the rain has opened a door to a world we’ve all been waiting for. The soil is damp, and the grass is growing greener by the minute. The flowers that have been hiding beneath the earth are starting to stir, and I can almost hear them sighing as the robin serenades them from his perch on the fence.

I wonder if he knows that his song is more than just a greeting. It’s a celebration. A reminder that spring is no longer a dream, but a promise.

☔️🪶 The Melody of Raindrops & Feathers…

This morning, the rain has a playful quality to it—gentle at first, then a sudden splash, as though the sky is laughing. The robin is no longer alone. There are two of them now, hopping together beneath the branches of the apple tree. They move in tandem, as if rehearsing for some grand performance.

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The rain, still falling steadily, doesn’t dampen their spirits. They’re dancing, or at least it seems that way—a little hop, a flutter of wings, a pause, and then another hop. It’s as if they’ve mastered the art of rain-dancing, their feathers shaking off the droplets in unison. I can’t help but smile at the sight of them—two birds, lost in the joy of the moment, as the world around them comes alive in every droplet.

The puddles have formed in little pockets on the ground, reflecting the birds like mirrors. For a brief moment, the robins are two reflections, their song echoing in the rain-soaked world. It’s a fleeting thing, this moment of perfect harmony between rain, robins, and the earth. But it’s a moment I’ll carry with me—a reminder that sometimes, all it takes is a little rain to make the world sing.

The Robin’s Song 🎵

April

🪹 The Nesting Begins…

The rain has softened, but the robins are busy. This morning, they’ve begun the task of nest building. I watch them, perched atop the fence and gathering twigs with a determination that speaks of both purpose and love. It’s a delicate process—each twig carefully chosen, each strand of grass arranged just so. The robin’s partner is close by, offering a soft chirp now and then, as though to say, Yes, this one’s just right.

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I can almost hear them discussing their plans, strategising about where to place each piece. It’s as if they are weaving together a story, a home built not just for shelter, but for the future. There is something sacred in this work. The rain has washed the earth clean, and now the robins are claiming their spot in the world—creating a sanctuary for the next chapter in their tale.

🪺 The Eggs Are Laid…

The robin’s nest is nearly complete now, a soft, moss-lined haven nestled safely in the crook of a low-hanging branch. And then, today—there it is. A tiny, speckled egg, nestled gently in the centre. The robin stands guard over it, his wings fluttering slightly in the breeze, as though to protect not just the egg, but the dreams it represents.

The rain begins again, lightly at first, as if the sky is offering its blessing. I can see the robin’s eyes glimmer in the soft light, a promise in them. There’s something so deeply moving about watching this moment unfold. The world is waking up. The rain is nurturing. And in this small, perfect nest, a new story is beginning.

May

🐣 The Hatchlings Have Arrived

The rain is heavier now, but the robin’s song is triumphant. This morning, the eggs have hatched. Tiny, featherless chicks, eyes closed and mouths open wide, await their first meal. The parents, no longer just nest builders but caretakers, flit back and forth, bringing bits of earth’s bounty to their little ones.

The rain is no longer just water falling from the sky—it’s a symphony that nourishes the earth, fills the air, and sustains this new life. The robins sing in celebration, their voices harmonising with the rain. And I find myself listening closely, for there is something about this season—the rain, the robins, the awakening of everything—that feels like a promise being fulfilled.

June

✈️ The First Flight…

The day has come, and one of the robins—now a little less wobbly, a little more confident—takes to the air. The rain has stopped for the moment, leaving the world fresh and bright. I watch as the tiny bird flutters awkwardly at first, but then, with a burst of courage, it soars higher, landing in the nearby bush with a soft rustle. The parents watch from a branch above, proud and patient, ready to cheer on the next little one.

The world is full of promise, and it’s all connected—each raindrop, each robin, each flutter of wings. The rain that nourished the earth, the robins that brought the spring to life, and the little birds that now take flight—all of it is part of the same beautiful story.

And I, watching from my window, know that I’ve witnessed something truly magical: the story of spring awakening, told through the raindrops and the robins, and carried on the wings of every new beginning.

9 September 202415 April 2025

The Peach Spectrum: Discovering the Role of Peach Colour in Flora and Fauna

Peach shows up in many places in the world, both through flora and fauna, giving you much room to explore when trying to construct a peach colour palette to use in the creation of art and design.

The origin of the name “peach” is obvious – it comes from the colour of peaches, which often has a slightly yellow, somewhat cream-colored undertone, and a subtle texture cause by the fine fuzz that covers the exterior of the peach.

This, in addition to the pink flowers that most stonefruit, like peach and cherries, have, it is easy to imagine why peach has come to be such an iconic colour throughout art history, as well as being such a common choice for neutral interior scenes, like its use in drapery or carpets.

From summer stonefruit to blooms in the spring, to even the wings of elephant hawk-moths, peach is no rare sight in our world. However, just because it is a commonly-used colour doesn’t mean that it is forgettable, and it is through looking for inspiration for a peach-centric colour palette that we can start to appreciate it most.

Peach blossoms are often quite small, and come from small-bodied trees, like cherries, almonds, and some cultivars of plum.

This subtle shade of peach straddles the line between neutral and warm, having some orange shades, and even a little yellow and blush, in addition to the obvious terracotta within it. Traditionally, dusty rose blush and sage is used as the complementary colour to peach, though this is heavily dependent on the shade of peach, and how saturated the colour combination is.

Using peach flowers in gardening is usually used to give the garden a softer and feminine touch. Like all reds and purple colours, peach is a colour that highly attracts pollinators, such as butterflies and bees.

When using peach flowers as inspiration for a colour palette, it is a good idea to lean into the subtleties and gentle shades used in plants, like incorporating the bare, dark-brown branches of peonies and roses in full bloom to contrast the tone of peach, or to outline the peach interior of flowers with delicate shades of white, and the framing of olive green leaves.

Other than flora, one can also look to the world of animals for inspiration. While most peach birds – flamingos, rosefinches, and galah parrots, for example, use varieties of pink that is far too bright to be considered peach, there are just as many that fit the pill perfectly to be used as inspiration for a colour palette.

For one example, the subtle use of peach in species of tropical fruit doves, like the Jambu fruit dove, which has only a slight blush of peach pink on its face and chest, framed with a bright white stomach and a deep, verdant green coat across its back and wings. This, along with the detailing of black around the underside of its light orange beak, creates an incredibly, seldom-used peach colour palette that balances out perfectly, and can be a very unique choice when deciding the colours of, say, an outfit, or a painting.

Rather than using a bright pink as a base, like other birds do, fruit doves typically only have small detailing in pink, making the colour a pop that is eye-catching and iconic, identifiable to other doves of the same species without risking them being seen by predators from above. In the same way, using this peach pink in art as a subtle touch to centre a piece makes it identifiable, without risking it becoming an eyesore.

However, if birds and flowers aren’t the use of peach pink that you were looking for, look no further than the field of precious stones. While often not as appreciated as glossier or more rare rocks, the opaque exterior of the peach opal is an incredible sight, having a brightness that can be used to add life to a painting or as an addition to a multimedia project.

Similarly, rose quartz is a precious gemstone long gone underappreciated for its relative accessibility, as compared to pink diamonds or pink pearls, but still as a slightly-yellow undertone that can be very inspiring for creating a peach colour palette based on it.

Lastly, the look of rhodonite is beyond compare, specifically because of its imperfections. When found naturally, pink rhodonite is a pink and peach colour palette all on its very own. With veins of jet black framing gentle pinks and reddish whites, often being created in the earth as uneven, asymmetrical collections of edges and spikes that challenge our perceptions of peach and pink as gentle or passive.

With flowers, birds, and rocks, among many other occurrences of peach in the natural world, there are many unique places from which to draw inspiration for a peach colour palette, some of which have long gone under-appreciated.

When incorporating it into your artwork, there are hardly any mediums that wouldn’t make for a good choice, but some might be better suited than others.

Because of how peach readily flows into other colours, both warmer pinks and oranges, as well as whites and greys, and even yellows if used properly, watercolour is the natural choice.

For a unique option, I’d even recommend experimenting with watercolour on silk, especially because of how the ecru colour of raw silk compliments peach. However, it is also a colour that can be used well in digital painting, since digital programs give you the option to experiment with colours and saturation more easily than traditional forms of painting, giving you more control and flexibility when it comes to the use of peach without it becoming too bright.

Regardless of the medium you choose to go with, remember the ways that peach is incorporated into different colour palettes in the world around you, and the many uses it has both for blending in and standing out, and you should be on the right track already.

16 August 202415 April 2025

Nature’s Palette: Dusty Rose

Roses come in all sorts of colours and shades, with dusty rose being a particular shade of pink that appears in nature as a mixture of desaturated pinks and purples. While it is named after its frequent cropping up as a colour of rose petal, this is only one of many uses for this particular shade. Dusty rose is a light, pinkish red that is popular to use for natural still life painting, because of the blue undertones used to create it, making it a more natural version of blushing red.

With all of this in mind, how should one go about constructing a colour palette around a colour like dusty rose?

A good place to start with dusty rose is to explore all the ways that dusty rose appears in nature. As a natural shade, dusty rose can be seen in the feathers of all kinds of birds, particularly rosefinches, who have a base coat of greyish brown feathers with a pink head and chest, often darker and more vibrant in the case of the males. This is because pink, when it appears in animals, is often used as a display colour to attract mates or to communicate health to other animals of a like kind. Though sometimes, as is the case with more vibrant pinks, it is simply the case of ingesting pink pigments. Regardless, this pink stands out brightly against the base colours of grey and brown, with are desaturated in themselves, but occupy a cooler space than dusty rose pink. In this way, one use of this shade of pink is as a highlight, pared with more muted colours in order to make the pink more present and vivid.

Similarly, pink is used in flowers to attract bees and pollinators to them. While not as bright as purple or yellow, it is still a powerful colour when it comes to getting the attention of flying insects. However, when used in flowers and other vegetation, it is more often used as a part of the bid for attention, rather than the main even in and of itself. In this way, it is employed in conjunction with light greens, yellows, and even various shades of reds, going from brighter, paler pinks, to as dark and heavily pigmented as indigo.

Serving as a landing pad for pollinators of all sorts, the dustiness of the pink in question comes from blue and grey undertones in the pink, which temper it as compared to louder pinks in nature, and even natural plant “dust” – which can come from pollen, natural particulates, or even actual dust, which can inhibit the plant’s ability to photosynthesise efficiency. This dust covers the leaves of the plant, both normal leaves as well as flower petals, giving it a more natural, somewhat understated look.

Unlike other shades of pink, dusty rose can be so popular for many things. Whereas more saturated pink colours (such as rose quartz or magenta) can create a reflective layer or look painted-on, dusty rose has a dusky colour that’s closer to a shade within the natural spectrum of human skin tones. When using dusty rose in painting flowers, for example, the shade can be darkened or lightened up, while retaining the very particular features that it possesses – like the blue and grey undertones that balance out the warm tones of red and brown.

This means that not only is this colour good for painting flowers, but it also is a perfectly upper layer when using oil paints to depict human faces in particular. Or, for example, the warm colours of palms or inner parts of the human body, where there is a great deal of blood vessels to create a warm, living tone.

When using oil paints, thin layers of pigment are overlaid to create an interplay of light and texture, making it so, when viewed straight-on, you can see all the way through the many layers of to the surface coat of the paint. This is so that a warm colour like dusty rose would be accompanied by various layers of skin-tones, for a balanced reflect the browns, beiges, reds, and blues, that come together to create a human complexion.

With all of these sources of inspiration in mind, it is useful to remember some of the colours that can be used in addition to dusty rose to bring the colour out best, either as a background or as a source of adding nuance when painting details. For this particular shade of pink as well as all variations of red, a tempered, woodsy green is a wonderful addition to balance out the warmer tones.

For dusty rose specifically, however, it can be interesting to combine it with a desaturated green, especially when painting in oils. Or, on the contrary, using a more measured shade of green, like the color of opaque, creamy jadeite, or even as light as Pantone’s milky green, to create a very measured combination of colour. Other colours that can be used in combination include an off-white, like a light cream or one with yellow undertones in it, or shades of grey, both of which bring out the warm, saturated nature of dusty rose to create a more robust palette.

With all of this in mind, I hope that you have an understanding of the many uses of dusty rose, both within how it appears in nature and how it is used in all kinds of art. Looking at dusty rose, and all of the ways that you can incorporate it into your artwork, you should have all of the tools necessary to create a wonderful, well-balanced colour palette that centres dusty rose at its foundation with ease.