Briar Roses

Next door have a beautiful Briar Rose which hangs over into our garden.

This year it is particularly beautiful, dripping with big clusters of flowers.

I love the vibrant pink-red of the petals and how they pale by degrees into ballet-slipper pink.

They are very satisfying for capturing in watercolours as they provide lots of opportunity to let colours bleed into one another.

The peppering of stamens and pollen is the painting equivalent of popping a cherry on an iced cake.

Yum!