I'm Stargazing

Ok, not exactly stargazing, more like stargazer. Actually exactly like stargazer. I decided to do a little thinking outside the box for my own challenge and do a tongue-in-cheek tweaking of the theme. This week I'm doing a Stargazer lily. In fact, I'm "cheating" even more as I've just been waaaay to busy this week to do anything else. SO, I decided to show you some old stargazers I did several years ago. ;o)

My thinking was if you're stargazing then you are a stargazer and a stargazer is also a lily, tada!! Now I can do a flower for my challenge instead of actually doing something celestial, hehehe. The stargazer (painting) I was going to show, I actually started over a year ago when I penciled in the macro of the flower and started the background. I then promptly put it away, not willing to try to accomplish painting it, not knowing if I could paint it successfully. Well, it doesn't matter now, because when I went to finish the painting last week, the frisket I had left on to protect the white areas had somehow melted into the paper and the whole thing was a mess. I knew I didn't have enough time to start again so I came up with this innovative cheat idea.

My most expensive cake!

Several years ago, before I was painting at all, I owned my own designer wedding cake business. I used the best baker in town who provided me with the very basic cake layers. I took those and did all the stacking, decoration, icing work etc. I made dimensional flowers in the new style, not the Wilton method but more real looking. This style is what you see on the celebrity cakes now. I was inspired by a guest Martha Stewart had on her show. That's when the business was born. 

At the time, I was trying to fulfill my need to create, but later (nearly eight years later!) I realized I just wasn't happy because all I wanted to do was paint. It was a difficult decision to shut down the business, I was good at flowers but I believed I had to follow my own bliss. And hey, maybe someday I'll teach the flower making, I know people want to learn it and experts in the process are fairly rare in Canada. That's something for the future. But now, I thought I'd show you some of the stargazer lilies I made for cakes over the years. Then I thought, "hey, that's not fair to the other lilies!", so I added a few of the other colors of lilies I've done, for you to see.

Stargazer with lily of the
valley and azaleas.

Stargazer with roses,
lily of the valley & sweetpeas

Stargazer with roses, bows
and lily of the valley

What I did when choosing a lily was I asked the bride what color she wanted her lily in, then I did research to find the perfect one so then she'd have an actual name of an actual flower that her new husband could buy for her, either cut flowers or a beautiful garden plant to remind them of their special day. I prided myself in NOT producing non-flowers, lol. No blue roses, EVER. :o)

Lily with oncidium orchids,
red roses & stephanotis

Lily, red & white roses and
stephanotis with bow accents

Bi-color lily with pink & red
roses in lattice basket.

I'll see you all in APR, do something celestial, be a stargazer or think out of the box like I did! I can't wait to see your work.
Later, K? Yes? YAY!

Best,

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