Editing

I love to take photos on my early morning walks of the sky, roses or whatever image catches my eye with my iPhone. Other people's roses. I only have two rose bushes in our yard and they seem to be hanging on for dear life! My dream is to plant a rose garden of my own.

My watercolors of roses therefore develop from photos I take from my walks in the neighborhood or from one of the gardens I visit (with my digital SLR camera) in our area. There is the Los Angeles County Arboretum, Descanso Gardens, The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens and Arlington Gardens close by. I feel so lucky to have these wonderful gardens to enjoy and visit them often!

Since I paint from my photographs, the first step (after shooting the photos and choosing the ones that inspire me) is to edit them to make a, what I hope to be, an interesting and beautiful painting.

Here is an example of one of the ways I edit my photos to use as a reference for a watercolor:

I "steal" roses from this photograph

and "add" them to this photograph

This is the "final" compilation

I wanted lots of roses to be in this composition and love the way the light colored ones move through the picture. I also like the little piece of sky in the background and the light hitting the distant trees. More color adjustments will be made in the painting process. This will be a full sheet watercolor.