What's not to like about Nasturtiums? Both flower and leaves are edible and rich in vitamin C (beware of the armour plated earwigs who like to lurk in the back of the flowers). The colour of the petals is such a vibrant orange/red that the paint couldn't match it, and it has the sweetest peppery fragrance when you get up close. When I was cutting it up to sample it, the smell touched a nerve in my memory that was so far back in my childhood that I couldn't quite reach it, or work out how I'd known it...
it did cross my mind when I was drawing it, that the shape of the flower pod reminded me of Alien - but then I have just recently been to see Prometheus.
...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.
