Day 5 of the Painting a Day challenge. I have this lovely orchid that is in its second
blooming. I started a really large canvas back on January first! A New Year Day ambitious
idea (link to my earlier posts) that I still haven't finished, in fact in six weeks now I haven't made any progress on that big canvas. Instead of portraying the orchid plant and blooms in all height and glory on a 18x24" canvas, I composed an 8x10" painting to do from life, alla prima, all in one day painting session.
Again, it's a white on white flower, which I find very appealing. I rigged a black backdrop out of black t-shirts, need to get out to a store for a proper black fabric backdrop to hang over my still life box. Speaking of still-life, even a supposed still life doesn't stay still. The tulips I painted three days ago? They kept opening and closing throughout the day. They started the day closed into tight ovals and by late afternoon opened so wide I thought the petals would fall off. Then I noticed that the next day they did it again. Same thing occurred with these orchid blooms, some of them have lost the flare that they had when I started.
