Surprise!

The best thing about raising orchids is if you ignore them, they present you with gorgeous surprises.

Last year I had a thrips infestation so this year I am diligent about spraying them with

dishwashing soap and water or neem oil to keep the "nasties" away.

At this time of year I get wonderful surprises almost weekly.

One of the joys of being a Florida resident.

Finally got this matted.  The original was the yellow and I added layers and layers, and layers of circle stencils.  The foggy white layer was the last and seemed to pull it all together for me.

What do you think?

Awaiting inspiration!  I have a vague idea about a dragonfly.  

Happy PPF!

P.S.  What a surprise!  I wrote my blog, went to post it and there was my hummingbird...and I was writing about surprises.  Thank you  Kristin and Eva! and the random number generator.

Reclamation projects

By now you are familiar with the multitudes of yupo backgrounds that reside under the bed

in the front bedroom.

This was a project to use some of those.

Am not sure if it is done or not.

I'll probably hide it for a few months and then take another look.

This was a weave using strips of old discards.
I discovered Rosie Kaplan on Facebook and she does some amazing circular weaves.
Couldn't figure them out but did come up with this .

And last but not least,
this was a background and I cut out stencils of the flower and the hummingbird and put them where the colors worked best.  I rolled it with green acrylic.  YUK it was way too green.   Another home made stencil of a picket fence (reversed) and I rolled it white.  Done, I think.
Happy PPF

Dancing Ladies

My apologies for the recent absence.

Work has kept me busy.

That said, I always reserve Wednesday afternoon to splash around in my paint.

This is acrylic paint on yupo.

When it dried I covered it with a thick watercolor mixture and this time for some reason

got the beautiful background as the water color paint reacted with the acrylic paint.

It has never done this before but I hope it does again!

When the water color mixture is dry you can sketch your design on with chalk and then with a wet brush lift away the watercolor paint  using bits of paper towel to blot away the color.

This is one I did a while ago.  The red is the watercolor and the gold is an acrylic background.  You

can see that only my brush strokes show in the bottom one, no reactions.

Here is a background (complete w/blue tape) awaiting transformation.

Thanks for stopping by!

Ooooops!  I forgot a bloom for you

I smelled these before I saw them, they are so tiny.  They have a wonderful coconut scent.