Pink Abutilons ~ Happy PPF!

Hello!

More florals from me as my entry for Paint Party Friday:

'Birthday Abutilons'
watercolour, watercolour pencil, acrylic and inkpen on paper

I had a specific idea in mind - pink abutilons.  A birthday card for someone who happened to say she liked them.

.... and so it began:

I can sometimes get away with just taking paint to paper and being happy with the result but, this time, it wasn't happening.
So, after a few tries I felt I really needed to draw an outline first...



Out into the garden to take some reference photos... not pink but that's easily fixed ;D):

As it happened, cuttings of this orange Abutilon were given to me by the very person for whom I was painting the card!

Outline sketch done:

First soft layer of watercolour:

Once dry, then in with more watercolour and the watercolour pencils:

Using the heavy watercolour paper enables lots of wetting and drying without too much buckling or erosion problems:

Then some acrylic for the stamen - I had a bit of trouble with this part and that's where acrylic is great, with all the re-doing I'd built up a bit of texture too (can't really capture it in the photo).

Finally, some outlining with my inkpen - the part I enjoy the most!

Linking to Eva and Kristin's Paint Party Friday, where the happiest of artists gather... and everyone's welcome! 

Subterfuge!

Hello!
Sharing My Darling hubby's clever little deception of the white cabbage moths.

He printed out pictures of them, which he covered in clear self-adhesive plastic and then glued them to a fine wire....

... the idea being that because Cabbage Moths are territorial, they won't encroach on anothers  'patch'

Hubby likes to garden without using pesticides or herbicides and so this little bit of  fun trickery looks set to work.

I love the look of them too, so it ticks the 'pretty' box as well! 😊

This is his vegie patch, and the long sections of plastic tarp laid down for a few weeks burn any weeds in readiness for planting, laying down of the watering system and then heavy mulching. 

Fresh home grown vegies - yum!