Field Trip: Denver Botanic Gardens

I took a little trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens yesterday morning. It was a beautiful morning to explore the gardens and to take in the new Dale Chihuly exhibit. Here are some of my pictures from the day. 

I really like the color of these. They remind me of snakes. 

If I ever have a big garden, I want one of these in it somewhere.

I would eat my breakfast there every morning. 

Lucky lily pads. 

This is some kind of swamp oak. I think it is a beautiful tree. 

These three birds, actually there were four but the other is on a different branch, were making the biggest racket. I don't think they liked people being in their garden.  

This little ladybug was kind enough to pose for me. 

I really like this flower, but I don't know what it is. 

Purple glass stakes in the middle of the rock garden. Strange but also kind of neat at the same time. 

I really like this flower too. Its name has something to do with a bear, but I don't remember the rest. I guess I should pay more attention to all those little placards telling what each plant is. 

This is my favorite of the Chihuly pieces. 

A Chihuly tree. This is the kind of sculpture that first comes to mind when I hear the name Chihuly. 

Chihuly lily pads. They're so delicate. 

This exhibit will be up through the end of November. If you are in the Denver area, I highly recommend going to see it.

Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival

A few years ago when I was working as a nanny, I got pretty good (so I sometimes thought) at at drawing with sidewalk chalk. My drawings were mostly limited to bugs and flowers, but I had fun messing around with shading and outlining and things like that.

Yesterday there was a sidewalk chalk art festival at the community college near my house. There, I saw how the pros did things. It was pretty amazing.

It's hard to tell from my pictures, but most of the sidewalk art was probably at least three feet across, maybe more. Most of the artists had been working on their pictures all day, putting in around eight or even more hours into their pictures. For their sake, I'm really glad it didn't rain.

Here are some of my favorites.












The last one of the Norman Rockwell picture was probably the most impressive, even though it was far from finished. Some of the shading and detail in that one was amazing.

So, the next time I have a wide expanse of sidewalk at my disposal, I'm going to get me some chalk and see if I can improve on my past attempts. It's doubtful that I will be any better, but it might will be fun to try.