I painted the background using watercolour in my favourite yellow. I learnt to control the amount of water as the paper started to ripple.

The inspiration for adding hibiscus was a tall bush of hibiscus nearby our home at the side of the road. I was surprised that my hibiscus actually looked realistic.

The theme of this class is actually painting Cattelya Orchids but I struggled to to find 2D images for inspirations of something I like to paint. I learnt that blue coloured orchids are likely to be artificially coloured. My struggle here is drawing the form of the orchids.

Sharpening up the leaves and creating the palette. I enjoy creating the palette for colours to be used for each flower type and leaves.

I also learnt that I can add darker outlines and creases from inside the orchids to make them more 3D looking, and to clean up my brush so that I do not make unintentional lines in the painting.

I also learnt from the recent Frida Kahlo exhibition that some people paint flowers as a way to preserve the flowers. In here, it may be a way to create a hybrid type of orchid which may be very expensive and time consuming to grow or does not exist (due to the multiple references). This is the piece that I spent most time on as well (> 12 hours).