I had a go at these before. I had another go today but with a Chinese brush and a new set of watercolours.

Here’s my phalaenopsis graveyard …

These aren’t phalaenopses, but there are aspects of some of them that are getting close (see below). I’ll keep practicing. The nature of the Chinese brush is that one can hold a lot of paint in the body of the brush and a small bit of a more intense or contrasting colour at the tip. So one can get a gradation of colour in one brush stroke. The difficulties include knowing how much paint to load onto the brush, how much pressure to apply onto the paper with the brush, what to do with the brush once it’s touching the paper and precisely how to lift it from the paper.

Phew.