Bouquet of Roses

Having roses on a snow day is wickedly awesome! If you know about the 12″ rule, then I know you fully understand what I mean about the snowy the day part. Having a husband who buys you roses and takes you to dinner on that day too, is ever so much more heavenly. You know, I got one heck of a keeper in Peter Woelk!

These soft petals are so gorgeous as they coax me to come sit by them. They are just sitting there saying, “Draw me, and paint me Val. By the way, I smell good too – if you’d like to come on over here and sniff.”

My mind says, “Okay, after I get the tomatoes canned today.”  But, the blossoms sit right there arguing with me some more, “Forget about those dang tomatoes”.

I take pictures of them and sniff their wonderful perfume every time I walk past them. Eventually, the flower wins out and I get a piece of paper and begin drawing them in pencil. Hours later, I notice that a lot of time has gone by. Wow, it goes way faster than I thought. Oh, so what. I don’t really have enough time to get the tomatoes done today anyhow and the light is so perfect on that red one right there. I’ll just get out a little watercolor block and try some watercolors because it is so perfect right here and now.

The layout flows easily onto the paper and I happily mix up so colors to wash in where the darker shadows appear. Before I know it, I realize that it is time to start dinner. Oops. I quickly put the paintings on the drying rack in the studio, and clean the brushes. I can pull a ready-to-eat dinner out of the freezer and microwave it, to get things going fast in the kitchen. Whew.