Monstera Artwork

This was a fun painting project, it all started when Ben drew an illustration that had some monstera leaves in the background and I asked if he could turn one of the leaves into a wood cut for our house.  He was lovely and obliging but then got a little stumped on colours.  I suggested rainbow camo which he politely ignored but then I couldn't get the idea out of my own head! 

When we left our old house, there was a huge monstera growing out the front and I sneakily cut a section off to attempt to grow my own.  I was half worried I'd taken the cutting for nothing when the original leaf of the cutting withered away.  Ben's mum assured me that Monstera are super hardy and as long as you have some roots on the section you cut (which I did) that it would eventually produce some new leaves.  I had the cutting in a bucket of water for 6 months before I finally saw some new growth and when I did I gleefully transplanted it into a new pot with soil.  When the first leaf finally uncurled I was struck at just how perfect it was.

I took a photo of the leaf, played around in photoshop to get an outline and then sketched that outline onto some plywood and the rest is history :)

Beginning stages of painting

The perfect monstera leaf!

Getting there :)

Ta-daaaa!

The monstera is by our front door and as I was coming home one day, I was shocked to see a skeleton outline where the leaf had once displayed itself so perfectly.  It wasn't too hard to find the culprit, a big fat juicy caterpillar on the stem, a little lower.  Ben convinced me to let the caterpillar stay in the promise that I'd be treated to a butterfly. Since the caterpillar had nothing more to eat I figured that was a fair compromise.  A few days later I was watering plants on the balcony and discovered the caterpillar had migrated to a balcony plant and indulged in another gigantic feast prompting a very swift caterpillar re-homing to some wild growth down in our back garden :)