Old roses

Earlier week, I made this collage in my journal.

That day, I was making an effort to paint and paste things onto the paper. 

I was organizing art supplies (which seems to take up more time than actually painting)

and these were just scraps that caught my attention.

I also tried again, to do these roses with watercolor.

They were starting to wilt.

I drew a sketch with watercolor pencil.

I'm still rusty after not drawing for so many months, so my aim was off.

After drawing the roses, I put in a background with regular watercolors.

This time I tried not to make the background mud-colored.

The sketchbook is large, 11x14 so I had issues with the background drying at different rates.

The rose I drew was not very neatly done.

Instead of filling it in with a wash, I kept scribbling on it with markers.

I also added some more color in the background, with a watercolor pencil.

I went over the background again with water to blend it.

This is where it ended up:

 Messy but better than nothing.

Yesterday I put the rest of the lanterns in the orange tree, to get them out of my way.

Still thinking about how to light them up with something solar powered.