i didn't promise you a rose garden

I love flowers. There are so many different colors, shapes, sizes and smells of flowers that I don't believe you could ever be bored of them. I love vibrantly colored flowers the best, and there is a garden on A street that is full of bright reds and yellows and pinks that I simply cannot get enough of! I would love to have a garden that colorful, but I think my distaste for weeding overpowers my appreciation of fresh flowers, so I'm more inclined to just relish in your flowers than try to grow my own.

These flowers are Western Irises, and they are beautiful. These particular blossoms live in the Arboretum on campus, which, coincidentally, is also where we ended up painting today. I have not ventured into the Arboretum except for once last September with my new roommates in the dark. Therefore, I had no idea the wonders to behold when walking around the luscious green pathways. Did you know there are ponds down there? Ponds! With turtles! And frogs!

There are lilac bushes bigger than China and huge willow trees that look like they could swallow you whole.

We walked and walked and walked until we came out on the other side next to a big red barn. I love barns, especially big red ones. And this barn was behind a big garden with Western Irises, Bearded Irises (of every freakin' color you can think of!), Daffodils, more flowers that I can't remember the names of, different types of grasses and lovely, lovely trees.

Unfortunately the weather felt like being really uncooperative (how rude!) and rained for a majority of the time we were down there. I don't know if you realize just how difficult that makes trying to paint with watercolors...since it's water falling from the sky onto your paper and messing up your colors. Plus, your paper can't really ever dry if it's being constantly sprinkled on. My first paintings of the Bearded Irises turned into splashes of color instead of beautiful flowers.

But then around 3:30 the rain began to lighten up, and I moved on from the beards to the westerns. The gorgeous purple flowers were practically just begging to be painted, so I set up shop in order to record their loveliness.