Green Thumb – photography, May 7th: A volunteer Sunflower, must be from last year’s seed, sprouted about 2 weeks ago, is already 5 feet tall with very large leaves.

Red Sunflower, photography – May 22nd: the plant is already 97 inches high, almost to the eavestrough today – that’s over 8 ft., and growing a few more inches every day. I cut off quite a few of the large lower leaves and some secondary flowers to enable the energy to go toward developing the main flower and seeds, which I definitely want to collect. There are still 19 long-stemmed secondary flowers unfolding and 8 more blooms stemming from the secondary flowers. May 26: With more secondary blooms unfolding every day, the plant is now over 9 ft. high.

June 14th: The main flower seed-head was removed. Only a few seeds may be mature enough to reproduce another plant because most of the energy has gone into secondary buds, then as those mature, smaller third and even fourth successive buds are still unfolding.

Today my little friend helped with the paperwork.

Magnolia trees require so much energy to bloom, when they do the older leaves die and drop to the ground, temporarily leaving a rather shabby-looking tree and leaves on everyone else’s yard too. Above: a honey bee checks out the other side of a flower, and next: a flower in transition.

I inadvertently leaned the large painting of Maple Leaves  near the framed photo of Sun Shower 03 that hasn’t made its way to storage yet after a show.

Ever since I took that photo, left, last summer I have wanted to use the idea of dramatic light rays in a painting, but not until this morning did I think to use it in Maple Leaves. One idea leads to another; I’m also going to use some tricks I learned during the painting of Sun Shower  01 (2007) where Watercolor masking medium was dotted on the canvas with a toothpick in areas where I wanted water droplets to remain white or lighter in color.

The thumbnails here are details of that work. It worked great but I removed it too soon before finishing and the results weren’t as obvious as I had hoped, so this is another chance to try again. This time it will be creating small streaks, left it on much longer so the vibrancy of all the colors will show through when the medium is pulled off.

The painting could be left as ‘Maple Leaves’ which is how it started out, but it has that bright glare acrylics are notorious for and I see a lot of potential in trying something fantastic with this painting. It’s one of those huge decisions made at key moments in the life of a painting – to risk or not? The 84 x 45 x 3 inch Maple Leaves title is now changed to Sun Shower 04.

Black Sheep Grape, and a Photo Smoothie

Zen Garden 08 Day interest and night drama! 24H x 24W x 1D inches acrylics on woven canvas strips over a layer of wrapped canvas. Sold.

Hangs diagonally about one inch from the wall surface. The wrapped sides are painted, frame unnecessary. View the piece from start to finish April 27th, May 12th and May 13th. The tiny openings between woven strips are brightly colored orange and reds, and to ensure they’d be noticeable. A string of small clear lights is woven into more canvas strips behind the frame. It’s quite attractive in the dark and also hung diagonally, optionally hung as a square.

Reflections – Sun poking through between storms. Sunflower-heads, red variety – the plant is large already, and very healthy with plenty of flower heads appearing. I’m taking photos in sequence and will post those together when the plant is in full bloom. Green Anole eating insects off of a spider web, window reflection.

Crackle glaze was applied at one stage, but the humidity is too high so it didn’t take, may apply again later at some point. Today playing with the patterns, colors, refining the pebbles, splattering to give them more realistic texture.

The Emerald Tree Boas is out in one work-area, the recently started Maple Leaves in another, and in the afternoon when I feel less like thinking but still want to keep the hands busy, have started painting Zen Garden 08.