Among the beautiful iris garden I visited in Colorado Springs, Co. were some incredible hues of iris. Many seemed to be impossible brilliant shades of from every color of the rainbow. I will be dreaming of these iris forever and of having my own garden filled with such delights. For now, a little bit of magic , and a lot of painting to go with the dreamy red iris that I spotted. This one was one of the flowers that was badly chomped on by bugs. Still I took a photo just for reference use of it. I know this painting is not as good as the real flower, but it will hold me until I grow my own. I do enjoy being able to paint flowers the way they should be, without flaws, a jewel in the sun. I'll still start posting up actual photo captures another time of the best of those I took that day. Sadly, many of the blooms were being chomped by some critter or bugs so I will be painting more than posting photos of this garden. Still, I've plenty of iris photos now in my stock files that I took to use for muses for my paintings. Lovely thing is when I paint, there is no need to worry about the missing, torn, wilted, discolored parts of the flower. I paint it as I dream them. This is a digital painting that is not a photo manipulation. I used a graphics tablet and pen, (Wacom and wireless stylus) to paint from a blank screen every bit of this painting. After I sketch out the scene, I begin to paint it and build up colors. It takes lots of layers of colors, even more work and time to get this kind of blending of colors. I did use a special brush to make the fairy dusting. This took about as long as it does to hand paint a canvas traditionally, perhaps more due to all the blending of colors I do to get the soft realistic feel. Of course if you you study the enlarged thumbnails below the image you can see some of my imperfect strokes like in the veins of the flower. Sometimes I'm a bit messy with the blending as well. I know the small thumbnail may look more like a photoshopped photo, but it is not at all. This is a painting, just done with a graphics pad and stylus. A mouse would not give me the control I would need to paint. I simply used a electronic brush and tablet that hooks to my computer. I also don't have to wait for the work to dry, or clean up afterwards. There's the bonus it stores as a photo file, and doesn't clutter up the house.