Salvia uglinosa (bog sage)

Salvia uglinosa has bloomed all summer in my rain garden. Its bright blue flowers are attractive to bees and to me.

Enhancing what you see in a photo

As I make these mandalas, I learn more about the photo. For instance, with the crocus in the snow, just looking at the picture I did not notice that one of the crocus blossoms is in shadow. But with this mandala, the darker color of the crocus in shadow is becomes evident. Perhaps this will help with understanding about light and shadow.

Please join in

If you have made a mandala from a garden photo and want to show it off, please feel free to add it here. Or if you have a photo that you think would make a good mandala but want some help making one, email me at greta@gretasgarden.com. Also if you know of an easy way to make round mandalas using Picture Window, please let me know. This is just fun for me. No money involved. Greta

Crocus in the Snow

Snow is rare in North Carolina. When it snows, it is special.

Okra Blossoms

Okra blossoms are beautiful this time of year. Growing okra is like having an ornamental garden and a veggie garden rolled into one. Here is the original okra picture with two mandalas created from it. The first one is with 8 panels and the second one with 6 panels.

Gretas Garden Mandalas

Photographs of flowers and butterflies in my garden have been converted into colorful mandalas using the kaleidoscope tool in Picture Window (dl_c.com). Here are a couple of examples.

The top picture was of Tithonia "torch" (Mexican sunflower) with butterflies. The lower image is of cardinal flowers with a butterfly. The digital images were enhanced by increasing the color saturation and adjusting the gamma. To me, this did not artificially enhance the pictures but brought them closer to what they looked like in real life. The image was then cropped to restrict what was included in the mandala. This required some trial and error. Fortunately, the kaleidoscope tool in Picture Window is really easy to use and takes no time.