One of the many, many things that I love about traveling is seeing and experiencing new things.  On a trip to Bermuda, 20 years ago, I first saw the sea grape trees, aka bay grape trees.  They are everywhere on the island and many hotels, guest houses, and restaurants pay homage to the ubiquitous plant in their name.  They were unlike anything I had ever seen growing up and living in the northeast US.  I’ve never seen the grapes of the tree, having never been around them in the late summer when the fruit develops, but I just love the large, round, sturdy and leathery leaves.  Small ones are about 6 inches and the large ones seem like they could make great dinner plates. When new, they are a shiny bright green with yellow ribs and veins.  As they age they become a beautiful red that contrasts wonderfully with that bold yellow.

©Gail Haile_Sea Grape Leaf

©Gail Haile_Sea Grape Leaf

 

For the past week, I was fortunate to be able to escape the cold and spend some time in southern Florida, another place where sea grape trees abound.  I also took the opportunity to play with some new ideas and photography equipment.  The image that I used for today’s mandalas is an underwater closeup of one those beautiful red and yellow sea grape leaves. I liked how much detail was revealed by photographing the leaf in that way and knew I wanted to see what would be revealed with mandalas.

As always, if you’d like prints of any of these mandalas, just email me.  Also, if you know anyone who would enjoy my work, I’d be grateful if would share this with them.