lady's slipper-Cypripedium calceolus-Concetta Flore

Here is a beautiful and rare orchid I sketched and painted, perched on a riverbank in Abruzzo National Park- Italy, last week-end.  It is a large plant by our orchid standards, with fascinating ball-shaped yellow lip and purplish ribbon-like petals. This clump was under trees in bright sunshine, with mottled shadows moving in the wind, so I gave up on rendering the chiaroscuro and concentrated on colour and shape. The water behind reverberated the light, lighting the plant from below as well than above- very intriguing.
I am responding to Kate's appeal in posting more often...
I couldn't colour everything on the spot because time was running out, but I fnished it at home, and that gave me the ease to find a satisfactory solution for the background.