Bees

Ending the Celtic cross series with bees.  When at the Denver Botanic Gardens the other day every flower seemed to have bees on them, so I will share more of my bees in August.

Bird of Paradise flower

The Bird of Paradise flower has bright red stamen that make for beautiful arching bits of color. Again a flower design is in the Celtic cross shape.  I found a link that gave a very good description of Celtic crosses thought I would share,  http://www.celticbydesign.com/index.cfm/feature/29_153/celtic-crosses.cfm . 

drops of water on a seed head

Another Cross different texture - still plant material.  Totally different from the Mandala posted on July 1st, but from the same flower picture (which I posted on July 9th).   I love to experiment with a versital picture.

swirled pattern

This felt like a carnival swirl painting. It's a filter in PhotoShop that I have fun with every so often.  It started as the same cross shape in July 17th post. Fun is the operative word here.

red and green feathers

A different kind of red and green.  These are the feathers of a tropical bird we saw in San Diego.  The texture is different from plant material in the earlier cross shapes and the circle has a different color feather as contrast. 

another red leaf amongst the green

Another red leaf amongst the green.  By positioning the segment just so you can isolate the color for the circle from the rest of the picture. 

water droplets

Here is a Celtic cross made of water droplets on some blades of grass.  Because of the light color of the outer band of grass you almost do not see the cross shape.  It looks like a square turned on a point.  There is still a circle of twigs and a definite cross in the middle, but the illusion of a square on a point is still there, squint your eyes. 

red and green leaves

More on the circle, square cross shape.  Again the circle, square and cross are powerful shapes.  The picture above was a leaf that had turned red amongst all the green ones.  It's a little early for fall which is when leaves normaly turn, but this was taken a couple weeks ago.  The red and green are pastel not the bright Christmas colors, it just felt pleasing to my eye.

humming bird

On the feeder a different view. 

Hummingbirds

Over the 4th of July we had lots of humming birds at the feeder in the mountains.  There were 5 birds in the original picture, not all quite visible.   I liked the division of 4 (on the 4th).

water droplets

4th of July came and went without fireworks in a lot of places in Colorado because of the high fire danger.  Fortunately we now have had rain for several days in a row!  3 cheers!! It is amazing how things can green up with a little rain. This is the original picture the last mandala was made from.  It is a firework explosion in a seed head, lined with water droplets.

cool colors

The pastel colors of this mandala appealed to me, maybe because they are cool colors and it has been so hot, so far this summer! A fuzzy seed head was what originally drew me to take the picture, you can see bits of it in the second circle from the middle. Have a cool, safe 4th of July!