no errors but unable to instantiate sprite in 2D space

any help for this simple problem? i have spent hours trying to figure it out with to no avail. (im using 2D settings for my project).

• no errors thrown

• Rainbow1 is a sprite

• Rainbow1 is inside resource folder

• the empty gameobject "end" has a transform of 0,0,0 as does its parent

• the camera z axis is properly adjusted

• have tried casting to gameobject and spawning as gameobject but does not work

• even though no errors are thrown, the instantiated object does not appear in the hierarchy during play.

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class SpawnStuff : MonoBehaviour {
     public Transform end;
     // Use this for initialization
     void Start () {
     
     }
     
     // Update is called once per frame
     void Update () {
         StartCoroutine (SpawnWaves ());
         
     }
     IEnumerator SpawnWaves(){
         Instantiate(Resources.Load("rainbow1"),  end.position, end.rotation) ;
         yield return new WaitForSeconds (3);
     }
 }