Happy New Year 2014

Here is to a year full of love and beauty.

 

Sweet Potato Hearts Design

Calla Lily Botanical Design

 

Ah, the calla. Elegant, refined, and sensuous.

This photograph, made in Photoshop is made up of 3 separate designs and measures 80x 80 inches. I would love to see it full size on a big wall ( a white one, or a yellow one or a green one).

The same flower designed 2 ways

A flower made from 2 stems

The circle of flowers

My friend Karen Sikie and I are embarking on a licensing journey, that is, working to get our designs ready so companies can use the images on their products. Bedding? Plates? Tiles? Paper? Who knows what the future will hold?

Hybrid Monkey Hand Tree, x Chiranthofremontia lenzii

When I first encountered these tree in bloom in Niles, near where I live, I was WOWED.  What on earth could it be? In a small neighborhood park there are two varieties of the tree; one orange (the crossed version, see below) the other red which is the original uncrossed version. Either way, I could not believe my luck at running into such an exotic flower.

Letters made from grasses and shadows, botanical typography!

I didn’t have to go further than my inbox to find out the name of this beauty, as a mail arrived from the San Francisco Botanical Garden that explained that their tree was in bloom now, and it was just the blooms I had been photographing. Interesting to note that it is related to the native fremontadendron.

These other flowers belong to the original uncrossed Mexican Hand Tree. What a specimen!

The pollen covered stamens of the Monkey Hand Tree, held in my monkey hand!

Is this a rare maple (Acer)?

This plant is a long standing mystery. It doesn’t seem to me that it can be that rare a species given its placement on the side of a levy.

The first to identify it gets a little print of one of the designs!