Orchidmania

I had my water colours of course, but I was not sure what I would paint. I had brought folios of Waterford Not 300gsm 24cm X 28cm so that I could bind the work into a book eventually (if it worked out okay). Well, at "Arrivals" at Chang Airport there were massed displays of orchids and this was my subject, confirmed by a visit to the botanical gardens.

After hopelessly overworking a white orchid on a green background - too busy for my taste -  I had to rethink my approach.
As I went along, I decided on the following "rules"
* Keep the background white.
* Play with the feeling of the flowers floating.
* Think of the possibility of repainting in a huge scale, or enlarging.
* Keep the water colour watery, translucent and understated.
* Include a small cartouche in pencil to include some lettering.
* Paint 2 orchids only per composition.
This is not very Ikebana where everything should be in odd numbers, but because often one orchid was face -on and the adjacent one was at a 3/4 view it seemed more interesting to do couplets. Also I really wanted the final format to be square. Tall and thin with 3 flowers seemed a bit twee. I liked the way they were joined by a "bit of stem"

White orchids on a white ground remains very challenging. Watch this space. Hopefully you'll see a small collection of paintings in a week or two at the end of the Singapore diary. I'll probably paint a few more in Kew Gardens to complete the project.

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