ROSES FOR SUE

 I painted the rose bouquet I received from Nicole and Victoria so I'll have it forever.

I did it in oils - I still don't know much about using oils.  I need a class and more practice.

FLOWERS

 Nicole and Victoria gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses in remembrance of my sister, Sue.

Such sweet girls.

CORAL ROSES

 I think this is the final version of my Coral Roses oil painting.

OIL PAINTED FLOWERS

 I had left my painting on the easel outside on the picnic table last night.  The wind blew it off onto the cement and it was now covered in little bits of sand and dirt.

So, the first thing I did this morning was to scrap those bits off.  I then tried to repair the damage.

So here it is after another few hours of painting on it.  It still needs work.  The roses are coming along, but the background needs a lot of help.

FLOWERS IN OIL

 This is the first time I've painted in oils since last summer when I painted the Alphabet series.

I think I forgot a lot of how-to.  But I had fun.

This is where I stopped for the first day.

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:

VALENTINE FINISHED?

This painting has been on my easel since February.  I've been messing with it off and on since.  If you look at the progress pictures you'll see I was not happy with it for a while.

So, I've been puttering.  I added some colored paper, then added some actual petals from the roses.

I had to abandon it for a time while I worked one week, then we went out of town for a week, then it was back to work for a week.  By that time the roses were long dead and Darrell had taken the black board I was using in the composition for it's intended purpose.  Needless to say, I was working without reference.

This week I got out my pastels and used those - then I sealed the pastels in with matte medium - which changed the colors.  But, it added some interesting texture and I found the medium will 'melt' the pastels and you can use them as paint.

So, here it is, finished (or not).  This is this year's Valentine's Day Flower painting, as is.

Ten roses - ten years.