A vivid vermilion caracal sits among hydrangea blooms. I call her Hortensie. There are three layers to the painting. The blue hydrangea was a real silk hydrangea sitting in front of me while I painted. The caracal was my drawing from a photo in a library book. The background was my drawing of a still image from a Vine video that I made of cut hydrangeas for sale at my local Trader Joe's store. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

I use randomizers to select my subjects and colors. My main color was Hortensie, a shade of light blue and color # 522 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book. My secondary color was vermilion. The Hortensie color name provided one of my subjects; "hortensie" is the German word for "hydrangea". My other randomly selected topic was African wildlife. When I studied African wildlife books, I liked the lesser-known caracal (Latin name Caracal caracal, nice and easy to remember...). Caracals are not superstars like lions, leopards and cheetahs, but they have a very distinct and memorable appearance with their flamboyant, lynx-like ear tufts. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)