I Hate Roses

It seems that the Universe is playing a little Karmic joke on me. Let me elaborate. When I started making designer wedding cakes, the part that made them "designer" were the flowers that I sculpted, shaped and painted out of cold porcelain. These flowers then adorned the wedding cake, making it something fit for an elaborate wedding.

When I made my first lily and it not only looked good but the techniques to make it came easily to me, I knew I had found a natural talent. Although I would get more proficient at making each kind of flower over time, the wide variety of flowers I tried in the next 7 years came easily to me. That is, all except one. The ROSE. The most popular flower for weddings, bar none. This flower would quickly become the bane of my wedding cake existance!

At first my roses looked slightly strange. Then, over time, they improved to just looking stiff. Finally, after 4 years and many roses later, they looked fairly good and only somewhat artificial. I was never totally happy with them and they took more time, practice and tweaking than any other flower, by far. It also didn't improve my love of them that each full blown rose took something like 25 individually formed petals. And coloring them was a nightmare because they had to be colored before they dried. I'll skip the boring explanation about why, just suffice it to say that coloring was tedious work. If I got an order for a cake using ALL red roses I would curse the bride and her damn taste for months as I made my nemesis over and over again. I hated them for all the above reasons but mostly because I couldn't achieve the loveliness of a real rose, no matter how hard I tried. It frustrated the hell out of me. Seriously.

Now, here's that little Karmic joke. I can hear the Universe chuckling & slapping it's preverbal knee as we speak. I paint roses better than I paint any other flower. I seem to understand the unique way they grow, mature and open. I can capture the curl of their petals beautifully. I can recreate a rose with paint even better than I can sculpt a lily out of paste. And now... I Love Roses! :o)  I don't hate them any more. Any of their species are welcome in my vase or garden. I apologize for my previous hate, it was really my own sadness & ineptitude at not being able to capture their beauty that masqueraded as hate. I humbly beg their forgiveness. It's a good thing that flowers don't hold grudges. ;o)

Here is my latest painting. Surprise!! It's a rose. (you weren't surprised at all, were you?)

I think I'll name it Karma. It seem appropriate, don't you think? Me too. I have five, yes, you heard me correctly, FIVE other paintings drawn out and ready for paint. I finally moved into larger paper this week. I'm doing one that is 16"x16" and another that is 15x20. I'll have to switch paint brushes and bring out the big guns. Uhhh..... brush. LOL. This behemoth of a brush is certainly at least twice as large as my favorite brush. And I can see myself having to hunt down larger brushes as I move to full sheets of 20x30 inch paper. The brush needs to hold enough paint and water so it doesn't streak when I am trying to cover a large area. Anyway, I'll keep you all informed on how the new brush works. I'm crossing my fingers.

I'm off to bed to get a good night sleep, I have paintings waiting to be painted! Don't forget me while I'm gone, K? I'll be back Wednesday morning (or Tuesday evening, right after the mosaic if I just can't wait, hehehe) with a new painting... I wonder what it'll be of??? ;o)

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