What Color is Your Rose?

When Kaefer and I heard that "Downton Abbey" has inspired a series of new roses, starting with "Anna's Promise", we were determined to get one (and we did - it resides now in the big planting box at my clothesline). However, before we went to our local nursery to get it, we thought about what the roses of the other female characters in this beloved TV series would look like.

Mary would be a rich, dark red with lots of thorns; Edith a soft orange. If there would be a blue rose, it belonged to Sybil. Cora's rose is white with a bit of a yellow shade. The Dowager? Purple, of course. Daisy would be a very soft yellow climbing rose whereas Mrs. Patmore would be an orange rambler! Mrs. Hughes' rose is soft pink with a few shades of red. Isobel probably would be a darker shade of pink. And Baxter's rose would be white as well with a soft red edge.

Then we thought what color our own rose would be. Mine would be orange with shades of soft pink and Kaefer's would be orange as well with specks of red. My daughter...

What about you? What color is your rose?

Roses From A Friend

On Easter a friend came by and brought these roses from her garden. I wish we had Google-Nose or something like that so you could smell their lovely fragrance. It's such a delight.

I love the popping color before the black backdrop. Perfect for Texture Tuesday. I processed it with Kim's texture "Magic Scripted" in blending mode screen at 100%. I love the outcome.

Of course there had to be a bird in the picture,,,

For the Love of Roses

When I walked through my neighborhood last week I was surprised to see so many roses - already, at the beginning of April. Yes, it still surprises me. In some things I'm still on "German time" (after 13 years of living in Northern California!) and that means that roses do not bloom before May with the peak season in June.

But this is Northern California - everything blooms so much earlier (my French lilac is almost beyond its prime); still a wonder for me. This rose caught my eye because of its beautiful colors - I like the pink and the peach, it's gorgeous. The white fence behind it didn't hurt either.

So I chose this photo for this week's Texture Tuesday with its theme "for the love of _____". Roses, in this case. Processed with Kim Klassen's texture "kk_0411" and then I brushed the texture away from the main blossom of the rose.

Roses And Fences

Photo of the week

As you know, I love to photograph fences. Fences are even more interesting if flowers are spilling over or between them. When I walked around the neighborhood some time this week I noticed how many fences there are with an abundance of roses. The roses seem to have turned up overnight - the gardens are exploding with all colors of roses and their lovely scent.

On the way to our little neighborhood grocery store I saw these - 

- and when I took a different route back I saw even more -

Okay, this last one is not a fence, but I thought I let this ladder count as a special fence :-)

There were white roses spilling over high wooden fences - 

- and some roses were already past their prime!

Actually, roses aren't my favorite flowers. But I do love the romantic feeling they seem to ooze out, although with thorns! Their scent is so lovely, I can hardly resist. And they make wonderful photo motifs!

I especially love this climbing rose, just around the corner from where I live.

What about you - do you like roses? Are they your favorite flower? If not, which one is?

Building a Trellis

Roses are not my favorite flowers. I like a few in my garden, but not too many. However, I do love climbing roses. So a couple weeks ago I bought a climbing rose which I envisioned climbing up our house right beside the door to my studio. I already have a raised bed there, and last year I grew some of my tomatoes here.

Now in the last weeks of winter it looked pretty plain - but that was going to change very soon.

I needed a trellis for my rose. We looked at Home Depot, but only found rather flimsy ones that we didn't like at all. This rose - "Westerland" in peach colors - is supposed to climb up several feet, and we wanted a sturdy trellis that wouldn't fall over in a storm.

So the Geek offered to build one. He hadn't done something like that before, he is not a wood worker. He watched videos and learned a lot about building a trellis and then he went out and set to work.

Living in Northern California we of course opted for redwood - this we did get at Home Depot, and the Geek cut it to the size we needed. There was a lot of noise and he produced quite an amount of sawdust - and some perfect long stakes for the trellis.

We laid it out on the ground to see how it would work and how much space we wanted in between.

Then the Geek screwed all the parts together and it was ready to put up where I was going to plant the rose. The Geek fastened it to the house - and it was done.

Doesn't it look fabulous? I can't wait for the rose to grow up along the beautiful redwood and hopefully give us many pretty flowers.

A Photo that Pops

A photo that pops - color pops, is the challenge for today's Texture Tuesday. The day I read about the new challenge (last Tuesday) I had just bought some roses from Trader Joe's. I loved their color, and there was no doubt that I would take some photos of them.

After I did some hue/saturation adjustments and turned it into black and white, I brought back the red in the roses. Then I blended it with Kim's texture "februarymagic" in Difference at 42%. Another hue/saturation adjustment and I was happy how it looked.

I thought I was done with today's challenge - but when the geek and I took a walk yesterday afternoon in the neighborhood we saw a huge crowd of crows sitting in a tree. It was amazing how many birds there were - it almost felt like "The Birds" - and hey, Bodega Bay is not too far away from here! Anyway, we took pictures of the crows, and when I looked at the photos at home, I had to play around with one of them in Photoshop. This is the result:

I first did a levels adjustment and then applied Kim's texture "kim klassenpumpkin grunge" in hard light blending mode at 91%, copied it and blended in soft light at 100%, followed by one more hue/saturation adjustment. The color really pops, it's almost glowing - that's what I wanted to achieve.