Tiger Lily Design

The inspiration

As with my water lilies, this design was inspired by some amazing travel photos taken by my stepfather. I like to challenge myself to use new palettes, and these photos used beautiful shades of orange and green that I usually don't incorporate into my artwork.

Some time ago, I ordered some ring bezels on a whim because they looked like they were going to be an amazing metallic lime green... but when they arrived, they were more of a blue-green. I put them away to wait for the perfect project - and here it is!

The design process

I'm working my way through old seasons of Project Runway, which I find to be great company for creating. In the episode that I was watching while I was drawing my tiger lilies, the designers were creating an outfit inspired by the botanic gardens, so that was fortuitous.

I sketched out the image quite quickly, and then got it coloured and printed, and the cabochons curing by the end of Season 5. The colouring process was interesting - as I mentioned, these are not my normal colour choices - but it came out even better than expected - and, fortuitously, an excellent match for my ring bezels!

My laser printer has been printing a kind of strange ombre effect recently - I think we may have accidentally stored some of the toner on its end instead of sitting flat. At first, it annoyed me, but I have actually come to really enjoy seeing the surprise effects - look how cool the printouts were!

I've got the goodies!

When I realised that I had exactly 20 ring bezels, I knew that these were the perfect treat to include in the goody bags for Craft Central this weekend. So they will be a strictly limited release, exclusive to the first 20 people through the door at 10am - if you want to get your hands on one, make sure you're early to score a place in the line!

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