Tulips and Roses
In our last post, we spoke of our obsession with roses around Valentine's day. Throughout the years, red roses have become the go-to flower for February 14th but why is this? It seems that while they are the beloved flower now, it wasn't always the case. In fact, carnations were commonly known as the flower of love. During Victorian times, if you were handed a bouquet of red carnations, they were the classic declaration of love. If you received white carnations, it was said that the sender's love was pure.
Unfortunately, many people today have a dislike for these beautiful blooms. Popular at weddings and funerals in the 80's these flowers have got a bad reputation for being 'cheap' and dated which is a shame because we love their colours and textures they bring to an arrangement.
Another surprising find we came across in our Language of Flowers research was that the red tulip was equally as popular with suitors in the 1800's for declaring their love. The red tulip was the Victorian equivalent to shouting about their love from the rooftops. Not only that, but it signified a perfect love that could stay the course. This idea inspired a few ideas for a few alternative Valentine's cards.
Tulips are a common feature of Folk Art painting particularly in Bauernmalerai designs, so we decided to incorporate them into a couple of projects.
How to Paint a Tulip.
Tutorials for the 'S Stroke' and 'C Stroke' are in our Masterclass for Beginners.
Tulip Duo
When practicing a flower for the first time, we recommend painting big. For our first project, we drew around one of our heart mount boards and drew a loose heart shape for the stems. Using our No.4 Round Brush, we painted the red tulips before painting the stems using a Liner Brush. If you would like to paint this design, you can find the pattern here.
Tulip Heart
Using our No.3 Round Brush from our Masterclass for Beginners, we painted small tulips around the edge of the heart mount board before adding stems and leaves with a liner brush.
Find the pattern here.
If red roses mean romance and passion and red tulips mean true love, what a message it creates when you combine them together! Here we used our No.4 Round Brush again for the tulips and roses design. If you would like to use this design, you can find the pattern here.
We hope the secret language of flowers have inspired you as much as it inspired us. We love the idea of sneaking secret meanings into our paintings and cards!
If you create a design from this series, please tag us on social media so we can see it and share it!
Until next time x