It turned out that one of the ways to make friends with the neighbors is to ask them for the cutting from the Passion Fruit (Passiflora edulis) vine that they forgot about in their front yard. I first noticed the plant few months ago when I saw a local fox trying to bite one of the low hanging fruits of it. At the later inspection the fruit itself turned out not to be particularly tasty, even for the fox. But the vine had beautiful alien-looking flowers that just had to be painted.  

As I contemplate the new direction that my creative processes is taking, I came across an inspiring and telling documentary from by Isaac Niemand, called "New Art and the Young Artists behind it". It is based on the 2010 Contemporary Culture Festival in São Paulo, Brazil. 

In the summer I was asked to select an interesting local habitat and to identify flowering plants within it. I was spoilt for choice with London'd numerous parks and loans and nearby bits of wilderness. But while watering my own plants, I had a conversation with a neighbour, who could not decide wither to pull her pretty blooming weeds out, or let them decorate her front yard. At the end, we decided that it weeds are weeds only if we do not like them, thus her Yellow Corydalis remained in place. But the conversation made me look closer at the plants that were persistently coming up and flourished in the most unlikely cracks in the asphalts and stone walls. I identified over 17 species on my street alone, and those were only the once that had pretty flowers in bloom! Here are some of these urban survivors that I chose to paint (bottom left, up and over to right):

1. Taraxacum seed, scale 1:5
2. Cirsium (Common Thistle)
3. Convolvulaceae (Morning glory)
4. Buddleja (Butterfly Bush)
5. Pseudofumaria lutea (Yellow Corydalis)
6. Taraxacum (Dandelion)

The Red Animated Anemone is approximately 1:2 scale animatronic model, anatomically based on the Strawberry anemone (Actinia fragacea), common to the British shores.  It is 27 cm high, 20 cm in diameter, with the Nuno Felt exterior, felted tentacles, Lego Technic parts and actuators, Arduino Nano, and varied other electronic components. 

The mechanism and software employ Open CV face tracking library that works in conjunction with Processing, Arduino, small webcam and two servo motors, to turn the head of the anemone and follow the observer. To mimic the closing motion of the anemone, a simple linear actuator driven buy DC motor and H-drive, pulls the umbrella-like closing mechanism down when the hidden sensor is activated.  

Here is a video of the animated anemone in action.