Yesterday I painted this pastel rose. It is a Queen Elisabeth rose growing in our garden. I can not resist taking photos of it all the time. It blooms all summer and all through fall. Even in december there will be some blooms left if the temperature is above the freezing point.

Especially in the morning and evening light, it’s glowing beautifully outside our kitchen window.

I didn’t get the colors completely right, since this set of 12 pastel pencils (Derwent Pitt Pastel) is a quite limited palette. But I like the simplicity of a limited palette and also how the painting will be different from the reference photo. It becomes a new flower with colors of it’s own, and the result can be very interesting and in a way unexpected.

These are the first pastel pencils I have ever owned. I do own pastel crayons that I used for a short wile almost ten years ago (2009) before I started painting with oils, and later acrylics. I like it! I plan to continue doing pastel drawings regularly alongside my other work in acrylics.

/ Linda Edlund