A waist-up portrait of a young gardener inside a Victorian glasshouse in deep winter, misting a wall of orchids with a brass sprayer, a cloud of fine droplets hanging in the air around his head, each one lit. His rolled flannel sleeves are damp, breath faintly visible in the cold glasshouse air, expression soft and absorbed, one orchid bloom cradled in his free hand like something breakable. Frost ferns climb the fogged panes around him; beyond the glass, snow-loaded pine trees stand gray-blue. Inside, the heater's warm glow pools terracotta and green. A single sun shaft threads through the frost patterns and lands across his knuckles and the flower. The mood is hushed, tender, and green in the middle of winter.
@mbrH,digital illustration