New Tinted Flower Notecards Set

In addition to finally getting some notecard sets designed, printed, and made available for sale in my Etsy shop from my "Flower Attributes" colored pencil series, I also finally got around to creating notecard sets for some older floral drawings.

This "Tinted Flower" set is comprised of six drawings completed in 2015 and 2016, on a mix of toned gray and toned tan paper. The original drawings were all 5"x7" in size. In each, I focused more on the shading of the flowers (highlights and shadows), rather than the color, adding only a bit of color once all the shading was in place, to give the drawings a desaturated look. It was a departure from the vibrant, highly saturated look I usually prefer, and not something I've done much of in the five years since (though I do really like how these notecards turned out, so maybe there'll be more of these in the near future!).

This pack includes the following 6 designs:

• Purple Tint (originally titled "Rose with a Hint of Purple")
• Aqua Tint (originally titled "Rose with a Hint of Aqua")
• Sepia Tint Duo (originally titled "Roses with a Hint of Orange & Yellow")
• Sepia Tint Trio (originally titled "More Roses with a Hint of Orange & Yellow")
• Blue Tint Sunflower (originally titled "Sunflower in Navy Blue and Yellow")
• Norfolk Succulents (the only one of the 6 designs with no color at all - the drawing was made using only black and white colored pencils, on toned gray paper)

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Love these notecards but wish you could swap out a few designs for some of my other floral drawings instead? I also have a U-Pick floral drawing listing available!

Matthaei Botanical Gardens Conservatory - Tropical Plants

I recently visited the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor. It was early April, so there was nothing yet growing outside - but there were some lovely tropical plants and some interesting cacti and succulents in the Conservatory (the green house), which I took several photos of. For today's post, I'll show some of my favorite tropical plant photos. (Check back soon for a second post of succulent photos.)

Sympathy Flower Bouquets

The week I got a D&C at nearly nine weeks pregnant for my missed miscarriage was an understandably emotional week for me - which is why I'm so grateful to my parents and my in-laws for sending me sympathy bouquets. They arrived on the same day, one box from ProFlowers stacked on top of another box from 1-800-Flowers on my porch.

My parents sent colored roses and my in-laws sent alstroemeria (a.k.a. Peruvian lilies), both of which came with a beautiful purple vase. Here are some of my favorite photographs of those flower bouquets, which I'll add to my personal floral photography collection.

Spring & Summer Landscape Photos

These photos were all taken in May-July in my front and side yards.

I planted a few dozen hybrid tulips in the fall, imagining our front yard bursting with color in the spring. They bloomed late and then didn't stick around long (I didn't spray enough deer repellent, and the deer that frequent our subdivision ate most of them), but I did manage to grab a couple great photos:

I also took pictures of the pretty blossoms on the crabapple tree in our front yard, as well as the red lilies and roses:

My hydrangea bushes (I have one very large one, and two small ones now) are also doing well (the large one especially):

The biggest front yard story of the spring/summer, however, was this little mama duck, who made a nest in our bushes, incubated 8 or 9 eggs, and then one day vanished - leaving one sad, unhatched egg behind.

Last fall, we also did a lot of work to our side yard landscaping, planting several hosta, ferns, and astilbe - all of which, I'm happy to say, came back and looked great this spring/summer, with little watering or attention given on our parts. I love the pop of color on the astilbe, especially:

Flower Power Exhibition - One More Week!

There's still one more week to see the "Flower Power" art exhibition at The War Memorial at 32 Lake Shore, Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan! The exhibition, which features my two colored pencil drawings "28 Years" and "30 Days," will close on August 19, 2018.

"28 Years" by Andrea Arbit

"30 Days" by Andrea Arbit

The gallery is open every day from 10 am - 6 pm and is free to the public.

For more information, you can visit the Grosse Pointe Artists Association website: http://grossepointeartcenter.org/

NYC Photos - Botanical Gardens Greenhouses

This will be my last blog post featuring photos taken on my recent (early April) NYC vacation. I've posted so many already - skyscrapers, other buildings, street views, urban flowers, Central Park views, and lots and lots of pictures from the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx - that you're probably sick of all these posts. :) But for me, they're a nice chance to share part of my vacation with the world, as well as make sure I have a back up of my favorite photos, so that just in case something were to happen to my computer, my external hard drive, and my cloud backup of all my thousands upon thousands of vacation and flower photos, I also have this blog to house some of my photos too.

We were very fortunate when visiting the Botanical Gardens to get a sort of backstage tour, courtesy of my husband's cousin Eric, who is a horticulturalist there. He took us around the grounds in a golf cart, pointing out some of his favorite places and introducing us to his coworkers and students - and also took us into the staff-only greenhouses to show us what flowers they have growing/are keeping in storage there. Just like art museums have more to their collection than what is shown to the general public, so too does the NY Botanical Gardens have more to their plant "collection" behind closed doors.

Here are some of my favorite photos of some of the plants we saw on our whirlwind trip through the staff greenhouses with Eric (and some photos from the staging areas, where staff were getting ready to add plants to various gardens or planters around the grounds):