Trichocereus/ "Desert's Rare Apricot Glow"

This rare desert cactus was in the research area of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum where I was lodging to take photographs for another piece I was painting for the Museum. The flower was stunning, moving in its petal colors from red to yellow and caught my eye (I happened to be there at the rare time of its blooming.). I drew on it only sporadically for 20 years because I was using it for demonstrations in my colored pencil workshops, but pulled it out this spring to finish it. The 30 or so photographs I took were "cut and pasted" to make a pleasing composition reference for me to use as source material for the drawing. The title of the hybrid flower is "Apricot Glow" and my hope is that the viewer will see that radiance in the artwork.