A Conversation about Orchids

I found this really neat book about orchids at an estate sale.

Our local art organization has a show coming up and I was intrigued enough with the cover photo to try my hand at  … something involving orchids.

Here is the photo of the cover of the book on Orchids.

Here is my sketch, last night, after dinner. Tools used: #2 yellow pencil and a variety of Inktense colored pencils plus water. I’d read that Hot Press tends to buckle when wet. Time to test that idea. (Note: it’s true, it did buckle. But by morning, the paper was flat again.)

This morning, I erased the penciled lines …

and felt the stirrings of anxiety.

What if I mess it up? So what? It’s only paper. (Sometimes you just have to talk to yourself. Gently. Repeatedly.)

While I liked the loose, dreamy quality of the orchid, it wasn’t something that I wanted to frame. It needed something. I spotted the bottle of Noodler’s Ink, still on my desk from yesterday’s session.

No!!!!!!!! Let’s just see what happens, okay?

Here is what ‘we’ ended up with. I call it Orchid with Measles.