Ambassador Cart or My Lesson in Flower Painting

. . . . . . . . It all started with a great idea

by Lisa Duckworth and Chris Roddy. . . . . . . 

Kingwood should have a Saturday Ambassador to direct guests so they don't miss out on the full experience of a visit to Kingwood Center.  From that idea came the next great idea that a cart should be provided for the volunteer Ambassador.  Cart was created and painted an interesting shade of green.

Lisa has her third idea.  The cart should be painted with flowers and Kingwood Center in an arch. 

Of course from there is where silly me gets involved in the following manner:

I suggest that Ellen paints the cart. 

Ellen tells Lisa she doesn't have time.

During Herb Garden I show the cart to Ellen.

I talk up how much fun this would be to paint.

I tell her I can put it in the back up the pickup and take it to her house.

I tell her we can do this together!

And so it begins . . . . . . . . . . . .

The cart was too heavy to put into the back of the pickup truck.  I suggested we take out the umbrella.  I really wish I had a picture of the umbrella to show what a silly suggestion that was.  A new plan was made to paint the cart at Kingwood Center.

Ellen and I started early on Thursday morning.  I was scheduled to plant annuals, but I didn't end up planting a single annual all day.  Ellen knowing what drives me showed up with a thermos of coffee!

And then we got to work!

Ellen drew out sketches of the flowers.  Our plan was for cone flowers, tulips, roses, peonies, snapdragons and iris.

I tried my had at painting leaves.  I got better on the second side.  Ellen went over them with other colors to flush them out and make them look more leafy.  I created this yellow Dr. Suesse like flower that is supposed to be a snap dragon.  If you look closely enough you can see a purple one on the side as well.  Ellen did a marvelous job with the stencilling of WELCOME.

Here is where the project got fun for me!  I painted these pink flowers which I called peony.  But then I painted these white flowers.  So the white flowers became peony and the pink flowers became poppies!  Ellen did an outline for the white flowers, but I was getting an understanding of how to paint things so I took a few liberties outside the lines.  GO ME!

We found that adding white paint to everything really made the flowers look nice.  So Ellen added white to the tulips and I added white to the pho snap dragons, which turned out to look more like marigolds on a weird stalk.  He He.  Ellen painted these awesome bees.  I need a close up for those.

The cart is done, but I was exhausted and Ellen finished it up.  I will post a final picture soon!