During the first training day with Linette, there was a gentleman there who made Bonsai trees. They looked spectacular! So nothing being off limits, I decided to have a go. I soon realised that I needed a lot more wire strands than I had cut and of course, I had to use a variety of colours (Magpie again!). I had a couple of goes with the following results. Here’s the first one. I also had fun with the roots!

Here we have the second one, using other colours of wire. I still need a lot more strands, will my hands have the strength to twist them? I’ll need to have a go. Just one more tree to show you under this heading, although I did make it with beads.

Just one more tree to show you under this heading, although I did make it with beads, and mounted it onto a lovely piece of wood

I still have lots of ideas for different kinds of trees, so which one next? Butterfly tree, it fills the void for different colours, that’s a surprise, right? Also, I’ve been learning about the process of metamorphosis, from the caterpillar to the butterfly. Yes, I’m going to do a teachy bit!

The caterpillar, when it enters the cocoon stage has to completely die to everything it was, in order to be transformed into a beautiful butterfly. The caterpillar literally becomes a protein soup that contains only a few stem cells that will grow to become the butterfly. Even in the final stages the butterfly has to break open the cocoon to emerge, nothing and no-one can intervene at this moment or the butterfly might not have the strength to emerge from the darkness to the light. Sounds a lot like life, doesn’t it?

Anyway, teachy bit over!

So I used the original tree pattern of thick garden wires, wrapped with the thinner wire, then splitting the thick wires to form branches and making smaller ones as I went. At the end of the small branches I attached a 100 wooden butterfly buttons, guess what? They were all brightly coloured, there’s a surprise!

The roots were woven with coloured wires, making a nice flat base. (This one is not for sale, however the second one is! See my shop).

Here is my second attempt at a Butterfly Tree. I used the same techniques as for my first one, but finished it with a different coloured base.

One day as I was browsing through some photos of real trees, I came upon this picture of a tree.

It really spoke to my heart, why? To me, it represented life coming from death. So I decided to have a go at my interpretation of the tree. Much harder than I thought.

Firstly, I had to tackle how to make an open tree trunk with a through and through. I ended up wiring individual pieces of heavy duty wire together in a circular fashion, allowing me to create a holes front and back. I then wrapped the tree and started to paint it. However, my lack of painting skills meant that it came out a horrible brown camouflaged look. I really didn’t like it. So I started again with the paint.

Colours, I love colours, REALLY! My husband Malcolm calls me a magpie! So I threw away the idea of having tree like colours and went for something bright. Job done! I’ll show you the pictures in a moment.

Next I thought of ways in which I could get water running through the tree. I thought of building a reservoir and using a small pump. I discarded this as I realised the water would eventually ruin the tree, unless it was fully contained. So instead I used silver and blue wire and wove the blue wire between the silver strands, to represent a meandering river that twisted and turned. I wanted to highlight the river area and so I added a set of warm LED lights.

Finally, more colour, red and green moss, just to be different, lol!

So here are the pictures of the finished tree. Much happier with the outcome this time! Try, try, and try again!

This blog will be very short, I promise.

So after my trials and errors, I finally took the courage to do a painting. Mind you, it was just a trial and I followed a set of online instructions, even down to the colours and everything else.

Now remember my original story (check out my About page) of being sidelined in art class and so to even take a chance, whether following someone else’s online teaching or not was a big deal to me. The fact that I’m even sharing it with you is an even bigger deal.

I want all of you to realise that when someone says you can’t, God says you can! You are created unique, with your own individual character. So, even if it takes a lot of time, try doing what you were told you couldn’t. Thumb your nose up and say I can, but stop comparing!

Anyway, I did say this would be brief! So here is my very first attempt at painting a picture.

Even my husband was blown away!

Trees on boards

My mind started working overtime. I wanted to try painting, at least playing with it. Remember this was a long time since I had put any paint on anything other than walls or ceilings!

So I started with a black background on a 8” x 10” board, easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Then I twisted a small tree from red, green and silver, finishing the branches bonsai style. I figured out where it would sit and then challenged myself further by stencilling in a verse from Psalm 1.

Put it all together and here you get the final product. Finishing with the stencilling was harder than I thought and I think I painted over it a least 2-3 times. Learning a little more each time.

So yes it’s for sale in the shop.

So onwards and upwards as they say!

More board ideas that I tried.

I wanted to make a tree against a heart background 10” x 14” and call it the Scarlet Thread, and it would have a red wire running from the bottom to the top of the tree. At the very top of the tree is a key, representing the key to your heart.

So I started making the tree first. This was much more in the fashion of my first tree, with thick garden wire and wrapping the trunk and branches with the thinner wire, then making individual branches, with all sorts of trinkets attached, beads, and charms, whatever I could find. I made small roots for this tree, trying to make them more like a ball than individual roots.

Then I had a go at painting a background, mmmmm, not so good, very rough and childlike, I thought, but then I added lights up and down the tree and it took on a life of its own. So here it is! Yes it’s for sale too if you are interested.

Not finished with the board ideas yet! Tried one more.

This time I took three coloured wires, purple, gold and blue and twisted them into the trunk and branches of the tree. I tried a finer wire but found I preferred the slightly heavier one. I finished the canopies with the three different colours, in a bonsai like fashion. This tree was then mounted onto a painted acrylic abstract background. Tahdah!!

Yep it’s for sale too, check out my shop!