One step forward, two steps back

I am back drawing flowers again.
A lot has been going on at home and at work.

Mom is pretty stable.
We still don't know what kind of a tumor she has in her brain, but they gave her an anti inflammatory (like cortizone) and every day she is more talkative and more like her old self.

Family that was visiting for Easter has gone home.
I couldn't let them sleep on my old mattress with the spring sticking out of it, so I bought a new mattress and that's nice.

The new office manager at work spent all last week shuffling our schedules around.

The last 5 years or so, I had been working nights, every night, until 9 or 10 because no one else wanted to cover that shift.
I complained about it so today was my first day going home at 5!

Almost. I got home at 6:30, but I still got to see a great sunset.

(I had not used my iPod with camera in so long, the battery was dead.)

Unfortunately, every day looks like I will no longer have any time to draw while I'm at work...

I used my free evening to pick roses from my garden and draw them.

I tried not to think about the mayhem going on at work while I was gone...
I sketched the roses with water soluble pencils:

I filled in the background with bright pink PH Martin's liquid watercolor.

I used some of the same pink watercolor for the color of the roses.
I also pulled out some of these watercolor brush pens by Bienfang.

I don't know if they still make them. They are similar to a water brush (on the left)
I brought a set of these Bienfang paint brush pens a few years ago, and every single one of them leaks at the seam.
(I put scotch tape on the one on the right to keep the paint from getting all over everything.)
I used those to make the details on the roses:

It was a mess but fun.