Orchid by Eds Miranda

Photo © Eds Miranda

"Orchid" by Eds Miranda. Oil pastel.

From the Artist: It is very hard to be a Botanical Artist, because all plants have their own characteristics. In negative, I use dark brown oil pastel and my artwork become very messy.

From the Painting Guide: It's a great advantage having the actual flower in front of you to paint, rather than working from a photo, because you can really observe it closely. Holding it in your fingers tells you things about the texture of the stem, leaves, and petals. Moving the individual petals shows you about how they're attached. Turning the flower in space enables you to observe how light and shadow fall within the flower.

It may feel that you shouldn't "waste" time on observation, that you should be busy painting. But observation is never time wasted. Even if you don't use it in that particular painting, you've got it in your memory for some future occasion.

Things to Consider When Looking at This Painting:
Shadows: I think the color of your shadows is a bit too dark, that it makes the change from the tone of the petal to the tone of the shadow too abrupt. What you could try is adding a little of the darker purple on top, or go over it with the orange from the background and see if that knocks it back a bit.

Another approach would be to make more of the shadows on the petals themselves, to darken these a little more. This would reduce the contrast to the other shadows.