Steve drifted in space with wonder. Bereft of the benefit of a starcraft, he somehow remained safe and alive. He wore no suit, no oxygen tank, and no means to propel himself. Simply awashed in whatever strange current carrying him through the stars deep in the cosmos. He was just one tiny speck in the vast debris floating in the universe.

The red planet of Mars loomed before him. Deep in a crater, far from the eyes of humans, nested an eden. Mothering all the fragile foliage with her loving leaves, the blooming seedling stood boldly in the center. An invisible hand reached Steve gently in greeting. The seedling's name was Oxalis. Old by human calculation, she was still young and she promised salvation to those who wish to bring peace. As for those who wish to bring ill will, the borders of her eden would be forever confounded.

His hand reached out to her softly glowing petals. Steve longed to know more of her eden and of the peace she promised. Yet, as he reached her petals drew further away. Picking up speed, he found himself carried away from Oxalis and the eden he yearned for. What was this that suddenly denied him so? Steve searched around him and discovered he was sitting in a giant soup pot rocketing towards earth.

Steve woke up and smiled wryly as he thought about last night's dinner. Maybe he shouldn't have eaten so late before bed. Stretching he decided to fix himself a solid breakfast before finishing his spacecraft. If all went well, today was the day he would set off for space.

Satisfied that contact had been made, Oxalis prepared for Steve's arrival on Mars.....

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Special thanks to Ekthon for writing this guide on how to manually build circles, spheres, and spheriods. Before finding this guide the best I could do was build rounded squares and cubes. He did a really good job in explaining it in a way that I could visualize what I needed to do to make the shapes I want. Thanks to this guide I had a lot of fun with this project learning how to do this and experimenting with round shapes and arches.

The central plant was largely inspired by my mother's unusual breed of oxalis. Well, unusual to me anyway. Its leaves fold down at night and then reopen in the day. Unlike her plant, I made mine a four-leaf variety. My only regret is that I was unsuccessful in mimicking my mother's plant's purple bleed effect in the leaves on the underside.

I hope you enjoy my first art project as much as I enjoyed building it!