Everythings Coming Up Roses...........

Summer Scents

Roses  softly appearing from a  whispery wash of  glowing warm pinks

On todays workshop I took time out as always to  work with  members of the group individually on their chosen subjects flitting from one to the other as time allowed. Looking back I painted a deer, a sheep, a cat and when I looked around at one point a hand waved at me from the back of the room. A photograph I had taken into the session of roses had caught the attention of one of the artists and they wanted help with ideas on how to create the essence of them in watercolour.

It's quite amazing but I had a tutorial online about painting roses from years ago which I still recieve comments about. My style has changed over the years but I still seem to paint roses in this particular way. Dropping Alizarin Crimson onto wet paper or working from the centre point bleeding colour away in almost radial patterns. I  "see" petals form in the patterns created purely by pigment and water and these turn into the rose eventually. Foliage  along the edges creates the outer  shape of each bloom and this colour allowed to run into a few outer petals adds extra interest.

My roses are now recognisable it seems from the lovely comments I recieve. My way of painting them isn't so much that I try to paint the flower. I aim to paint the impression of their sweet heady perfume on a summers day. Hence my titles usually include the word " Scent ".  I have painted " Scents of Summer"," Summer Scent" and many more that lead the imagination to taking in more than simply viewing a painting of a rose.

In Norway we almost had a rose garden during one workshop so it seemed fitting that in England we had roses in todays session too.

******************

Thank you so much for the lovely emails asking me to please share more roses. This summer I have been so busy but I hope to share a few more here very soon!