Every May the City of Keiser has a grand Iris festival. I rose early on Saturday to tour the Iris fields. I found this peony bloom among the gardens. I was attracted by the intense contrasts of the white flower and dark foliage.

Peony flowers are short lived but oh what a life. To capture the excitement I felt, I decided to zoom in on the flower and then take liberties with the saturation, and value.

Since this on La Carte paper I did not do an acrylic underpainting. I worked with hard pastels then ended up Unison's for the finish 

"Blazing Peony"

16x21"

June 2001