Florida - Bok Tower Gardens - January 2017 - Acrylic Sketch

Two Januaries ago we spent almost a week in the Orlando area, and got to visit the Bok Tower Gardens.  The acrylic painting below (probably close to finished - an early foray back into acrylics, which I've used only a little since high school) was inspired by the little grove of mandarin oranges in front of the estate's house.

I could not get a photo of how those ornamental shaped trees, with their astounding fruit, made me feel.  How the colors hit me full in the chest, how intoxicating the light, how tempting it was to pick and eat one of the mandarins hot from the sun.  But my family was patient with me while I tried for about 30 minutes. and about fifty shots.  Below are two, including the one used to lay in the oranges in the painting above.  Painting is acrylic and watercolor, not quite 18 x 24 inches.  The bird is a white throated sparrow - common here in NC (I did not see one in the orange trees in FL).  The sparrow suggested himself while I was laying out the sketch, back in March 2017.  This painting sat unfinished for over a year - I finally knew what I wanted to do with it only two weeks ago.