I created a version of this picture several years ago, but I never posted it because I wasn't quite satisfied. So I decided to take another look and polish it a bit. I ended up changing more than I had intended, but I'm pretty happy with it now. Here's the earlier version.

I love sitting outside around dusk and watching the fireflies!

I love frost and snow and things that sparkle in the sun - even though I know a late frost can do some damage in the garden. But this virtual rose isn't going to be hurt by the last frost of winter.

I had been doing some pretty colorful pieces, so I thought it would be good to focus on light and shadow for a change. This is a closeup photograph of an orange rose, but I took away all the color except for the water droplets.

I don't use yellow very often, so I thought I'd try it on a rose. This is the same rose model that I used in Blue Rose. I created a silky yellow and orange material with some translucency in Vue.

The sunny cheerfulness of the yellow rose is often used to symbolize friendship and warm affection.

I found this buttercup buried in the grass on my grandfather's Christmas tree farm, off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Fancy Gap, Virginia, the same place as Appalachian Green and How the Grass Grows

Some single-petal red roses that my dad grows.

“The blue rose means mystery. An appreciation for the enigmatic, the inexplicable is expressed by the blue rose. A tantalizing vision that cannot be totally pinned down, a mystery that cannot be fully unraveled is the blue rose. A person who receives the blue rose is the subject of much speculation and thought. A complex personality that does not allow easy interpretation is what the blue rose indicates.”
— FlowerMeaning.info

“Due to the absence in nature of blue roses they traditionally signify a mystery, or attaining the impossible, or never ending quest for the impossible. They are believed to be able to grant the owner youth or grant wishes..”
— Wikipedia

This was my first “professional” image created with Vue software. I had tried out the beginner versions of the software (with all the limitations such as size and watermarks that come with that type of software) and decided I wanted to invest in learning this program and making extensive use of it in my future artwork.