Cactus Flower, Orange

This orange bloom came from a hike, one of those tiny cactus flowers that open close to the ground and are easy to miss. Enlarging it felt like the only way to give it full impact—the warm petals, the darker center, and the radiating spines all becoming large enough to study. The soft background lets the flower and its spines take the space they never occupy in the landscape. I painted it because small things like this ask to be made big if they are to be seen properly at all.