Salmon Surprise Peony from Schatz’s fifteenth book Botanica (Bulfinch Press, 2005). “I researched and looked, carefully, at every artistic rendering of flowers and botanical materials that I could find. As well, I bought and thoroughly studied 50 books of flower paintings and photographs. I wanted to find my own way, compose something original and beautiful. I've often said that it is essential to be a scholar of one's field of endeavor. For imagery one must have and continue to build a vast visual data bank of everything possible. For this image, I pulled off all the flat petals on the outer 80% of the peony which revealed the set of beautiful, thin underdeveloped petals, pistils and stamen as well as early-forming seed pods."