FLOWERS IN WATERCOLOR

 Victoria was very thoughtful and brought me some flowers.  I had told her I'd like something more interesting than just roses to paint.  She brought a bouquet with these beautiful coral colored roses along with Calla Lillies and baby's breath.

I rearranged them into an arrangement with just those beautiful roses and took them out to the picnic table to paint.  Sorry Victoria, I guess I'm not tired of painting roses - maybe I'm just tired of painting red roses.

First, I had to make my way up to my studio to gather my materials and equipment for painting with oils.  Darrell was kind enough to carry everything down for me since I am still using a walker and can't carry anything.

[This was the first time to go upstairs since my knee surgery and my left knee was not happy about having to do all of the work going up the stairs.]

I started out doing a contour drawing with an ink pen.

It turned out really well.  Then the plan was to apply watercolors.  I was putting down just water first so then I could add color.  But, oh my!  the ink I had used was not waterproof.  I freaked out - I had ruined my beautiful ink drawing!

I quickly blotted it up with paper towel. 

 It didn't look to bad, kind of like an etching.  So, I made the decision to put water all over the whole thing and then blot it up.

Then I continued with the watercolors: