Each painting is a chance to challenge myself in some new way. This time I reached for a color palette I hadn’t touched in years, craving some serenity after seasons of hot, vibrant color on my glass palette. What emerged was a gentle blend of a bulbous Paphiopedilum Orchid, its long petals reaching outward from the center. The blues carry more weight toward the bottom of the painting, while at the top, the Orchid blends completely into the background, dissolving until flower and atmosphere are the same thing. Painting it became a quiet meditation on the emergence of life and the mystery of existence. Layer upon layer of thin, translucent pigment let the flower and its surroundings settle into one another.