Working in Series

I've created a series of irises in the last month, progressing from "real" to more wild interpretations.  Yesterday's was among the wildest.  These small pieces were among the more conventional ones, when I was exploring a combination of ultramine blues and burnt sienna as the background, in a tonal approach.

Voltaire also said, "The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."  I'm not sure if they qualify for Voltaire's definition of "boring," because I like them.  They are "pretty", but definitely far more traditional than many of my interpretations.

Correcting Nature

Voltaire once said, "The secret of the arts is to correct nature."  At the very least, this applies most especially to painting landscape.  This painting of irises may not correct nature, but it certainly interprets freely! ("Crazy" 16x20 oil)