Thursday 19 May 2016

Roses for a June Birthday

Metanoia Climbing Rose - changes from Orange to Pink to Yellow!

I always look forward to June - and not just because my birthday is in June! - but because it's the month when the roses in my little garden are looking their best.

Albertine Old-fashioned Rambler
'Roses Round the Door!'



June is the month for roses as far as I'm concerned, even though my yellow 'Dreaming Spires' begins to bloom in May, or even late April. 

In June, all my climbing roses are out and filling my walled garden with their wonderful fragrance.



So it's perfectly appropriate that the Rose is the Birth Month Flower for June. 






And my Zazzle stores provide plenty of options when it comes to choosing a birthday card or gift for someone who celebrates their birthday in June. 
Here you'll find all sorts of roses, all painted by hand in watercolours - yellow roses, red roses, various pink roses and even little pink and white dog roses -

Click on the image below to see the whole collection:

But whether or not you are specifically looking for a birthday gift or birthday card, you'll find a great selection of home and fashion accessories, cases and sleeves for electronic devices, as well as matching giftwrap and greeting cards, in my 'Summer Days' collection.

And you can browse the whole of my 'Summer Days' collection by clicking HERE and scrolling down through the categories to find -













The bright pink roses on which I based this design are not in fact from my garden. 

A friend hosted a birthday picnic in the rose section of the beautiful but little known Linda Vista Gardens in Abergavenny. And once we'd finished eating, out came my camera and I 'snapped' a few of the roses, with painting them in mind.


Alchemist Roses
changing colour!


I nearly always work from photographs because flowers wilt so quickly when I try to paint them from a vase - not to mention the fact that I'd have been in big trouble if I'd tried to pick the roses in the Linda Vista gardens! 

But I take my photos with painting in mind so they are often not particularly good as photos!

When I paint flowers in watercolours I generally work on wet paper and drop the colour in to begin with and let it flow - so I have to work very quickly. 

The original painting of these 'Lipstick Pink' roses probably took me minutes rather than hours and I was quite pleased with the result. However, when I scanned it, the upper part of the painting was very faint so I abandoned it and added it to the pile of sheets of watercolour paper that I use for testing colours when I'm painting.

Then one day, it occurred to me that I could use the painting for a greeting card or invitation, placing the text in the area that was too washed out. 


That worked well and from there I went on to create a repeating pattern and some coordinating patterns to make a collection that eventually fixed itself in my mind as 'Summer Days'!




Here are the fabric designs that made it into my 'Summer Days' collection, available on a wide range of fabric types - the white butterflies in the background were a later addition!








I do hope you've enjoyed this 
'Summer Days' post
 and that you'll have time to 
'stop and smell the roses!'








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