Orchids

Super pastel work, so delicate. Your orchid will flower for ages, but not too much watering.

Great first try. Love the delicacy you have achieved. Total success. I'm like Helen, I've never tried pastels or attempted painting flowers, but I'm attempting a Rose at the moment, in watercolour, if successful, I'll post it on the site for your opinion.

I use pastels a lot but have never achieved the smooth quality of your work on these lovely orchids. Beautiful shift in the pinks used Helen and love the composition. What paper did you use for this pastel? the grey background is just right.

Many thanks for your kind comments folks. The variation in colours is due to the various layers of colour that I applied. I didn't have any pastels that were close to the the real colour of the orchids, so I applied lots of different colours and tried to use the purple to create the shadows. The paper is Winsor and Newton pastel paper (tints). I think I made it hard for myself using the grey paper as it needed lots of layers of white. Each time I fixed it I had to reapply the white as it had gone grey. ~The tooth of the paper is quite deep too.. I'm now thinking of attempting the same subject using different media.

Fine work

Thank you Timothy.

Delicate work! Very impressive!

Thank you Yana.