I’ve been waiting to share this one with you guys because it was a special surprise for someone who likes botanical paintings. So, I had to wait until the special occasion had passed and the gift had been delivered.

I prefer painting landscapes, which means capturing a moment… but it is nice to paint something that holds still.

First, I did a dappled background in taupes. Then, I added the grey square, which is going to be the “white” planter. Then, dark green for the cactus and a strip of terra cotta around it. Each of these steps inspired terror in me, for fear of ruining the previous one.

Next, I made the planter 3D by adding dark shadows and white highlights.

Each cluster of spines on the cactus has white fuzz around its base, so I added fuzz nodules. These will guide me when I start the slow work of adding spines. I’m working from a photograph, but the cactus in my painting is turning out to be a larger plant than the original, with more rows of spines.

And now, we start adding spines. Each node has five long ones. When they get really long, they curve over each other and make a thicket.

Spines completed. I used a tiny little brush for them. The key is to draw each line with confidence. It was soothing; I listened to a Haunted Cosmos podcast while I worked, because what accompanies a nice botanical painting better than terrifying exorcism stories?

Note that the mature clusters also have reddish-brown spines.

I’ll need to add more spines as finishing touches after I add the flowers.

Now, here come the blossoms…

When I had done a few of them successfully, the terror decreased.

On the photograph, some were barely visible buds, so I had to make them bigger. I wanted eight.

And, here’s the finished product! The flowers are nestled in spines, so I had to add more to conceal the base of some of them.