Photo study: The Whacked Iris

Yesterday while using a string trimmer on the weeds along the border of a flower garden, I accidentally whacked the head off of one of the Irises that had gotten tired and felt like having a little lie-down on the ground. Rather than toss it on the compost heap, I decided to preserve the flower in water for as long as it would last. But what kind of vase should I use? Usually I'm partial to Olive Garden salad dressing cruets and Snapple bottles with the labels still on, but there really wasn't enough stem left for either of those to be practical. I pulled out a small jar from our Vault O' Jars. It was a nice one, with chamfered corners. What the heck did it hold, once upon a time?

Today I realized that this Iris head in a jar might make a nice subject for a painting sometime. I set out to take a series of photos that I could use as references long after the Iris has withered into cellulose dust.


Each photo I took was from a different angle or had a different setting or different lighting conditions. Each one captured some different aspect that I might incorporate into a finished painting. For example, I love the broken refractions of the stem in these first two pictures.

Other pictures captured different colors in different parts of the image. I should really construct a screen of some sort to use as a backdrop.

This last image captures the bubbles in the water beautifully. In this photo and the previous two the jar is perched on top of a two-liter soda bottle, its cap covered with a tissue. (Balancing things delicately is one of my superpowers.)

The "table" on which the jar sits in this photo is actually a song sheet from church - a piece of paper folded in half - placed on top of the two liter soda bottle and covered with the tissue.

This Iris will probably be wilted and done with by tomorrow. But using these photos, I may be able to create an image which preserves it a little longer.