Painting Roses

Literally. That's what I've been doing
to enter a nature-inspired art contest.
I'm not expecting to win but it sure
was fun. I used my own roses as
inspiration. First I printed up a normal photo of three of my roses. Here's a pic of two of them.


Then I played around with the photos and emphasized the edges with editing software. I did this because I can't draw a rose very well. By focusing on the edges of the rose petals, I was able to see how they overlap better.

I cut apart the black & white rose pics, taped them to the back of a sheet of paper canvas and traced the lines.


I loaded my brush with paint and after just one stroke, figured there was no way I could follow all that drawn detail so I just winged it and totally ignored most of my tedious pencil detail. Here's the final painting. It has gems glued on for dew drops but then I found out
attachments weren't allowed so I had to take
them off and paint on dew drops or my
painting would be disqualified. I entered the
gem version as Entry #1, the non-gem version
as Entry #2.


Then I found out that I was only allowed to use 6 colors or less, and it was implied that meant including any blended colors. Not stated in the rules. Hmmph. Which meant my first two paintings were probably disqualified.
Double Hmmph.


So I made another entry that pretty much
follows my drawing and didn't use shading or
blending of colors. After painting, I erased all
my pencil marks. I really like how it turned
out and did a little whoop-de-do dance
when it was done. I'm stoked!

Then I found out that one of the rules states it was supposed to be emailed by 6 pm tonight which means it was probably disqualified. The other rule states midnight as the deadline so I hope the judges use Rule #2 - Midnight deadline.

Anyway, I'm not expecting to win. But it sure
was a heap of fun to paint! And if I do win, I'll
get a 5 day trip to California! Woot!