Yucca

The purple/red color of the outside of this yucca bloom struck me as beautiful.  Yucca is a desert plant - Colorado has been as dry and as hot as a desert this summer.  My heart goes out to all those threatened by the fires now burning in Colorado and elswwhere in the west.  

Bee on a milkweed plant

Bee on a milkweed plant.  There are bees all over the Botanic Gardens.  The milkweed plant has a multi flowered head which creates various star shaped patterns in the mandala.  The individual flowers are themselves star shaped with 5 petals.

a rose

Took a trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens, they have a lovely display of roses.  They had just watered so there were water droplets on the petals.  Beautiful flowers as always.

succulent

Every so often I use the cross form - it makes for dynamic shapes combining circle, square and cross, all very powerful ancient shapes.  Above is a succulent with the growing tips pointed outward.   I liked the subtle gray blue colors toward the edge.

octopus picture

Here's the whole octopus.

Octopus

This is my octopus in the aquarium, just his suckers on the side on the tank and a white dot that sort of sparkles at the end of the 6 arms near the middle.