I had a very industrious weekend. Saturday was filled with sunshine and photographic possibilities whereas Sunday was steeped in rain, which meant for a lot of indoor creative endeavors.

My weekend in pictures:

My night water lily. It is a little groggy to close in the morning, so I can usually catch it still in full bloom at 6:00 AM.

A hibiscus blossom greeting me first thing in the morning.

Plumeria! This flower is so fragrant, not to mention velvet to the touch.

A water lily, just waking up and spreading her petals to embrace the day. I thought this might make for a nice Thermofax screen, so I imported the image into my computer.

I used the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to focus on the central flower shape.

I then dragged the flower to a white background.

Using the photocopy tool in the filter menu, I turned the full-color image to a black and white rendition.

Then I opened a new file in Photoshop and dragged three of these flowers to create a row. Later, I copied this row a couple of times so I had a sheet of three rows of waterlilies.

I then printed the sheet of waterlilies on my inkjet printer, placed a piece of screening material on top, and ran them through the carrier of my Thermofax machine. The bulb in my Thermofax machine heated up both sheets, and where the black carbon ink appears on the sheet of paper, it melted the screening material, creating the graphic impression on the screen.

I usually run the print and the screening material at least three passes through my Thermofax machine to make sure the image took on the screening material.

I chose pink paint to screen the images onto a rich lime green background. I created about 1/4 yard of fabric with this image, and screened with a variety of colors.

I had an idea to incorporate this piece to create a stitched cover for a recycled aluminum can to hold my watercolor pencils.

And here it is: my new watercolor pencil holder. I guess I should make greater strides to keep a sketchbook now!

When I was done, I experimented in the kitchen and made  spinach and parmesan dumplings in a ginger broth:

I enjoyed a nice couple of quiet days. Did you stitch or quilt this past weekend?