Tulip Trio and an Anniversary

My spring bulbs are already on their last legs. I've been taking the kitchen shears outside and cutting off the dried up tulip and daffodil blossoms, trying to encourage the plants to put their energy into their bulbs, and not into making seeds. A week or so ago I took some shots of a yellow tulip I brought inside, with an eye to seeing how the sun shone through the petals. This morning I did my best to capture the bright yellow of the petals in sunlight, and also the shadows. Most of the painting is watercolor. I was playing around with the background, and found it to be too distracting, so I went over the whole area with an indigo Prismacolor pencil. I'm not sure the colored pencil works well with such textured paper, but the effect is more unified than what I had before.


I know the rest of the world is getting ready to celebrate Mothers Day, but since I am not a mom, and both our moms have passed away, we don't celebrate that any more. However, last night when I was upstairs working my dear husband called me down with a surprise dessert. These decorated cheesecakes are to celebrate the one year anniversary of our adoption of our cat, Bucky. When she came home, Bucky was a seven pound, big eyed, scaredy cat. Today she's twelve pounds (I'm guessing) of fur and purr. She came home in a ventilated box from the Humane Society, but she is going to need a new, bigger, carrier for her one year vet check up. She gives us both a lot of pleasure and companionship, and we're glad she is here. Happy anniversary, Bucky!