I've started a new colored pencil project recently that focuses on the subtle differences of roses. This large drawing will include thirty different rose pictures, spaced out in a grid of five rows of six roses each. It's still in progress, but the real reason I'm delaying posting photos of the drawing so far is because first I wanted to write a few things about where the idea came from and the thought I put into this piece - before I ever picked up a colored pencil to draw it.
I know there are many types of roses - Wikipedia says there are over a hundred species and thousands of cultivars (ornamental garden roses) - but I'm not a botanist or gardener, and haven't educated myself on these categories. Instead, what I mean by "differences" are variations in characteristics that any rose can have - from species to species, but also within a single species. For instance:
- Color: Is the rose one color? Two? Several? Is the inside a different color than the edges of the petals?
- Shape/Fullness/Openness: Is the rose mature or is it a rosebud? Do the petals curl outward, or back inward? Is the inside of the rose visible, or are petals covering it? It is round and full? Is it wilting?
- Texture: Are there any lines or wrinkles visible on the rose petals? Are the edges of the petals browning, crinkling, drying up? Are there any holes or tears from insects or other outside forces?
- Environment: What is touching the rose? Other roses? Insects? Dewdrops? What is in the background? Leaves? Grass? How tall is the grass? Is the background too dark to see what is in the background at all?
What's more, I looked at these differences through the lens of metaphor, continuing with the symbolism I started using for my thesis watercolors in 2009. In those paintings, I compared roses to female genitalia. I called those roses "core imagery," and said that they were symbols for actual body parts, for female sexuality as a specific or abstract concept, and even symbols for women - that the "core imagery" could also be a metaphor for a woman's life or personality, related or unrelated to her sexuality or sexual organs.
So looking at the different ways I could describe a flower through that lens, the questions become:
- Color: What might the different colors mean? Red could be pain, anger, menstrual blood, love. Pink could be warmth, romance, the beginning or end of a period. White or cream could be purity, or perhaps coolness - a desire not to be touched. Or it could signal ovulation/fertility, discharge, mucus, or other physical symptoms of a woman's cycle (and therefore most likely signify a desire to be touched). Orange could be passion, self-confidence, exuberance. Bluer purples would then be days that are more cerebral than physical - days of self-reflection, meditation, relaxation. And roses that display more than one color would have a hybrid of these characteristics.
- Shape/Fullness/Openness: What might a rose's shape then signify? A mature, full bloom could be interpreted as a physically mature woman - one who has gone through puberty but not yet hit menopause, a woman who is fertile and "in bloom." Or perhaps it could be a woman who is "mature" in another way - emotionally mature, spiritually mature, etc. A woman who is comfortable taking up space; a woman who has healthy self-esteem. A rose whose petals are reaching out, opening the flower as wide as it can, might be a metaphor for acting extroverted, feeling bold, being comfortable, or searching for friendships or a mate. A rose whose petals are curling in on itself might signify shyness or reticence, or a woman looking back on herself, her life, or even masturbation. A rose that is open and exposing its inside for pollination might be a metaphor for sexual desire or sexual openness; a rose that is closed off might be "closed off" - in all sexual or emotional connotations of the phrase.
- Texture: What might different textures mean? Lines or wrinkles might symbolize life lived, experiences experienced. Blemishes could be age marks, or wounds (as they were in my thesis - holes and tears indicative of physical or emotional traumas). Dryness might symbolize physical dryness - due to a lack of sexual desire or simply from changes throughout a woman's cycle - or emotional fragility, with a petal's brittle, brown edges acting as a metaphor for suffering. Or, conversely, such dryness might be interpreted as emotional strength - hardness, numbness, stoicism. It depends on the person, I think, and what she sees as important.
- Environment: Things in the environment around the rose would obviously also transfer into symbols of the things (or people) around a woman's life. Dark, mysterious surroundings could signify disturbing traumas, disturbing dreams, general life stress, or even something as innocuous as time of year (short days, long nights, colder weather). Grass and leaves could be items on a to-do list, with some days requiring more work and more effort than others; or they could be people talked to on that day; or general life stressors that were considered, ignored, or triumphed over; or grass could be a metaphor for pubic hair, with shorter or longer grass revealing personal grooming habits. Visiting insects could similarly be conversations with other people - or, if sticking with a strictly sexual interpretation, a sexual act. Just as roses open to let bumblebees pollinate and spread their seed, so too could an image of birds or bees stand in for..."the birds and the bees." Other roses in the background could stand in for other women - friends, coworkers, family members, sexual partners, etc. Raindrops or dew could be physical dampness (due to sexual desire or cyclical changes), or they might symbolize tears and emotion, or even stand in for perspiration - endorphins released during exercise, or "fight or flight" anxiety, manifesting as shakiness and sweat.
Many of these interpretations contradict themselves, and many depend on how far exactly one wants to take the idea of "core imagery." Is the rose a whole person, or just part of a person? Is the rose a person's emotions and personality and mood? Or is it simply sex and nothing greater - sexual organs, body parts, genitalia.
It is these sorts of questions that I kept in mind while I decided what rose images to use in starting my large 30-rose colored pencil drawing (which I'll start posting pictures of on here tomorrow). The drawing is going to be called "30 Days," with each rose standing in for a single day in a woman's life. I chose 30 because it's about the length of my personal cycle (and because I was particularly intrigued with how different colors or textures might symbolize different parts of a cycle, rather than just the week of menstruation we typically think/hear about), but also because it happened to fit nicely in a grid. I could've just as easily gone with 29, or 31, or 32 - but 30 is a number that led itself best to the proportions of the paper I'm using, where five rows of six roses fit just about perfectly.
