Tuesday 2 June 2009

Rosa glauca

The last two days I was working on a drawing of one of my favourite roses. Rosa glauca. It's a botanical rose with small pink flowers. The leaves are spectacular: grey green with a bit of dark red in the veins and stems. In the autumn the rose has a lot of dark red hips. It's wonderful. I made a drawing of the hips two years ago. I will probably do another one this year or next year since I've sold the first.

Rosa glauca

The rose is flowering only for a very short period and I had to work fast for this drawing. This morning yesterday's flower had dropped it's petals. I'm happy with the flower and I think the pink resembles the true colour very well. Also the buds and the stem (or branch) are very good I think. The leaves however are a bit of a problem. I don't like doing leaves and the colour of these leaves is very difficult. I managed to draw two leaves and I hope the pink of the flower and the red of the branch will distract the attention from the leaves a bit.

Oh, and about the rose... it's called Rosa glauca, which means Red-leaved rose. The front of the leaf is grey- green but the backside of the leaf is a bit reddish. The veins are red too. It is a species of rose native to the mountains of central and southern Europe.

4 comments:

Jan Pope said...

This is so beautiful. I am so impressed with your work. You handle the color so well.

If you have blackberries growing in your area, they have a similar blossom and leaves. They are in the rose family.

Sigrid Frensen said...

Thanks Jan! The colour is strange and were hard this time. In the leaves that is.... I have Blackberries beside my house and I made a drawing of the fruit two years ago (look at the banner of this Blog) but I never actually did the flowers.

MACO said...

Wow! How brilliant colors!

Sigrid Frensen said...

Thanks Maco!!!