Victorian Roses and Lace

This is one of my favorite tags.  Victorian Roses and Lace lends charm and beauty to any gift.  Why adorn your packages with just any tag when you can have beautiful, elegant tags?  You can find this tags and others at Rosecote.com.  Just print the tag on sticker paper or index card stock.  Then cut it out with a pair of scissors, add a ribbon tie if you wish, and your gift will be uniquely identified with a tag that will be just as treasured as the gift.

Enjoy your day and be sure to visit How Sweet the Sound and participate in Pink Saturday with me!

My New Art Tool

I am loving my new art tool!  There are some wonderful art apps, including Procreate, Art Studio, Adobe Sketch, and Photoshop Mix.  Teaching myself how to use the apps to create art is a challenge, but I can paint in any medium, draw with pencil or pen, or manipulate images with these apps on my iPad.  The Apple Pencil makes it much more precise than using fingers.

It appears that I can install some of my favorite digital brushes in some of these programs!  As I become more knowledgeable with the software, it will be 2nd nature to use technology as an art tool!  What a wonderful age we live in as artists.  By the way, the iPad is rose gold and the whole thing keeps me in the Pink Zone no matter what I am doing on it!
Thank you to Beverly for her dedication to Pink Saturday.  How Sweet the Sound.

Vintage Romance - Rose

Inspiration for artistic endeavors can come from almost anything.  This background was inspired by dirt!  Working in the rose garden, digging in the dirt, set my mind to thinking about making a digital background framed in dirt!  So I set about creating some digital brushes that I could use for dirt.  A new painting surface is born!  Introducing you to Vintage Romance - Rose.  Quick and fun.  The background is available as a digital download at Rosecote.com.

Thank you to Beverly for her dedication to Pink Saturday.  How Sweet the Sound.

Rose Post

I love creating vintage looking backgrounds and then painting on them, enhancing some of the background features to integrate with my artwork.  This "postcard" exemplifies my technique.  The card was digitally created, printed on archival card stock and then mounted to an 8x6" panel.  This can be displayed on an easel or hung.  Either way, it makes a charming accent.

These backgrounds are available in a digital download format on my website, www.rosecote.com.  This one is from the Vintage Papers Collection.

 Thank you to Beverly for her dedication.  How Sweet the Sound.

A Birthday Cake

I celebrated a birthday this week and to my surprise this cake was delivered to my door.  It was the most gorgeous birthday cake adorned with 52 handmade roses!!  And I was told that it would serve 30 people.  Guess what I did.......cleaned.  The party was great!  And we ate all of the cake!

It thought you all might enjoy my contribution to Pink Saturday.  Thank you to Beverly for her dedication.  How Sweet the Sound

Raspberry Stain

This is a painting of some roses from my garden.  I designed the background on the computer using Photoshop, printed the graphic on archival card stock and painted the roses in oils.  I love integrating digital art with traditional art.  It gives me so much more to work with.  The digital background design is creative in and of itself.  Then painting the oil design on it is exciting, uniting the two art forms.

It has been awhile since I have participated in Pink Saturday.  I hope you enjoy my contribution.  Thank you to Beverly for her dedication.  How Sweet the Sound 

Oil Painting Expressions

Oil Painting Expressions, an online oil painting course, has kicked off Session Four. I am teaching the first lesson, Ageless Beauty. There are 8 lessons from 8 talented artists plus the new Oil Basics Brush Ups series. New to oils? We make it easy to learn! Watch and paint along with the short tutorials in the Oil Basics Brush Ups Series covering topics like surface preparation, blending, leaves, twigs, fruit, flower petals, shapes, gold leafing, varnishing, and more. Already an accomplished oil painter? Then you can pick up some valuable oil techniques to add to your skillset! Visit www.oilpaintingexpressions.com to find out more. Join us for 11 months of painting inspriration and learning all in the comfort of your own surroundings!gold leafing, varnishing, and more. Already an accomplished oil painter? Then you can pick up some valuable oil techniques to add to your skillset! Visit www.oilpaintingexpressions.com to find out more. Join us for 11 months of painting inspriration and learning all in the comfort of your own surroundings!gold leafing, varnishing, and more.  Already an accomplished oil painter?  Then pick up some valuable oil techniques to add to your skillset.  New to oils?  We make it easy to learn.

Visit www.oilpaintingexpressions.com to find out more.  Join us for 11 months of painting inspiration and learning all in the comfort of your own surroundings.

My Christmas Card Box

Something decorative with pink roses, of course, is called for to keep Christmas cards during the holidays or to treasure at any time of year.  This is a lid to a wooden box, with a cut-out so that the cards lying in the box can be viewed through the lid.  I purchased the box over 15 years ago, and finally painted it just this last week.  The design is from the book, Country Gardens from Cedar Crest.  I love Mary Jo Leisure's designs.  I admire how the line of her designs flow...with such ease and grace.

Roses are a favorite painting subject of mine, but I also like to paint blackberries, raspberries, and mulberries.  I remember fondly the mulberry trees at my Aunt Eileen's house in Kansas.  My cousins and I used to pick them and eat as many as we threw at one another.  We all would have mulberry stains on our clothes, but I don't remember every getting in trouble for that!  Everytime I see a mulberry, I think of Aunt Eileen and the fun we cousins had forming clubs, building club houses and mulberry fights.  This Christmas, Aunt Eileen will remembered with every Christmas card I store in my new card box.

Thank you to Beverly for hosting Pink Saturday!

Roses on Nook Cover

Happy New Year everyone!  This new year I am starting off with a good book on my new Nook.  For years I have been reading books on my Palm.  Yes, I still have a Palm T3.  I take it with me on all my travels.  Well now I will be reading books on the Nook.  As soon as I opened it this Christmas, I knew that I would be personalizing the pink cover with roses.  This is a photo of roses I painted.  It actually goes with my luggage that I painted three years ago!  A girl has got to be pink co-ordinated at all times.  Thanks go to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for hosting Pink Saturday.  Keep it pink for 2011!

My Pink Saturday Tea Set

Last week I showed you my teacup, so this week I want to show you the tea set.  I love the line, the scrollwork, the shape, and the pink of it!  It makes me feel good when I use it, but also just seeing it in my china cupboard!

This is a porcelain plate that I painted a few years ago.  It compliments the tea set, I think.  These lines, gold trim, the color pink, and of course, roses, are embedded in my bones!

I want to do a painting of one of the pieces of the tea set.  Maybe I will try to do a digital one!

Thank you to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for hosting another grand Pink Saturday!

It's Pink Saturday!

My posting for my 2nd Pink Saturday is a Gift Tag.  I love the romantic, Victorian look, and delicate pinks suit my sensibilities.  I made this tag using a combination of my artwork, digital elements and computer skills.  They are so much fun to create.  I make one and an idea for another is born.  I can foresee that there will be many gift tags!

Thank you Brenda at How Sweet the Sound for hosting Pink Saturday!  Thank you to all of you who took a moment to welcome me.  It is taking me a while, but I am making it to all of your blogs.  All of you are so creative and inspiring.  It is fun to be associated with so many connoisseurs of Pink!

Pink Saturday

I am participating in Pink Saturday.  Begun by Beverly at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/, the idea is that you can post anything pink on Saturdays!  Now how hard is that going to be for me?  The hard part is not to post anything pink on Sunday through Friday.  Ha!  So here is my first truly pink item, (posted on Friday in anticipation of Saturday).

This luggage was painted for my trip to Antarctica.  It brightened up the landscape!  I painted roses near the handles on the top and sides of each of the pieces.  When I checked in at the ticket counter, I was asked by the agent if I was selling these!  I wish I could have said "Yes!".  My luggage was easy to find, and I was assigned the tag line, "Antarctic Barbie".

I continue to use the luggage and truly enjoy it!  By the way, I bought the luggage for $49.95 for the three pieces.  The black garment bag pictured behind the pink luggage was about the same price.  I painted roses on the gussets of the garment bag so that the bags piggybacked on the garment bag would not mar the roses.  I was able to maneuver all of the luggage by myself.

Thank you, Beverly, for inspiring Pink Saturday.  This is going to be fun!

A Trail of Roses

Finally!  This one I am keeping.  I have painted this Mary Jo Leisure design at least 3 times, and each time I have given it away, but this one goes on my sofa table.  It is a stand-alone painting on wood, trimmed with gold leaf, which has a receptacle attached on the back side in which I can arrange some greenery or some filler flowers.  I am getting ready to decorate for Spring!  Countdown.....11 days! 

The Romance of Roses

The Infatuation: The rose has been associated with romance for centuries. Legends, fairy tales and folklore have evolved around this delicate flower. The names alone given to its fragrant blooms evoke romance. The desire to recreate its beauty has challenged many, whether by capturing its image with poetry, embroidery thread, photography, or brush. For those of us who have been smitten by the rose, that desire becomes a driving force in our chosen art form. So it begins, our romance with the rose.

The Romance: A rose has a language all its own. Its color may indicate passion, jealously, new love, or purity. As romantics, we can coax the emotion that we desire from our rose with any of the colors we have in our paint boxes. One of my great joys is to paint roses of unique color, against unusual background treatments and hues. Combined with other design elements, such as china, ribbon, lace, or berries, the romance of roses deepens our desire to represent its beauty in many settings.

The Courtship: A romance can blossom in any environment, but with a little creativity, it can be greatly enriched by its surroundings. So it is with the rose and the leaves by which it is framed. Deep, rich green leaves with undertones of purple, or ones marred with leaf spot and bug bites, give the painting interest, depth, and enhance the beauty of the rose. A faded leaf, a bulging bud, or angular stem gives each painting a uniqueness all of its own, but a dew drop adds the sparkle of a diamond! It is hard to resist painting roses on unusual surfaces or tucking them in surprising places. The courtship of a rose can be very heady indeed!

The Affair: Like any love, painting roses requires great care, patience, and at times, perseverance. But with desire and a little experimentation, we are ready to embark upon a great adventure full of whimsy and fantasy. Whether you are just flirting with the notion of painting roses, or are a serious suitor, you will enjoy the intrigue and mystery that your romance with the rose provides.

It is my hope that you won’t suffer the pain of pining after a faded love. Best wishes on a long and happy relationship.

Jeanne Downing