Farewell to Summer 2

Farewell to Summer 2 is copied from another photo that I took in my garden on a sunny afternoon in September. I found that the orange of the butterfly was quite striking against the white of the Garlic Chive flowers. You may be wondering why the dark background in this series of paintings. To be honest I don't really know myself but in my mind's eye, as I contemplated doing these paintings, the background was always a dark blue colour. Primarily, I feel that it brings out the subject clearly since blue is the complimentary colour of orange. My husband's comment was that when he thinks of butterflies he thinks bright sunny days not dark moonlit nights as these pictures seem to indicate. My response was (to sound artsy and all) that the darkness was the tension in the picture that will keep you coming back to it. Actually, I think the dark moonlit or dark forest aspect of the painting gives it a 'magical fairy-like' quality.