A few years ago my grandparents gave me these roses after watching my dance recital and they were so pretty that I dried them out and kept them in my room. I decided to paint them for two reasons: 1. because I had been drawing a lot of flowers and I liked how they were turning out and I wanted to replicate it on a larger scale and 2. because these particular roses remind me of my grandparents and how they have come to every single one of my dance recitals, ice shows, and a lot of my skating competitions despite having sixteen other grandchildren.

This painting is part five of my concentration. I started this while I was on a break from doing my large canvas eggshells. I took lots of risks and strayed away from my original idea, beginning to branch out with different techniques and colours, instead of forcing my artwork into a confined style. However, to keep the piece relevant to the rest of my concentration I tried to keep my focus on the bigger picture rather than on each little detail. I purposely picked a subject matter with personal meaning because I wanted to explore some of the emotions behind my concentration. I started this piece by photographing the dried roses in various positions until I found an arrangement that I liked. Eventually I was painting them onto my canvas. I ended up using a dark purple colour for shadows and, after I finished painting the roses, I decided to go to the opposite side of the color wheel and make the background yellow. Yellow is a very happy colour so I thought it would suite the tone of the piece as well as the aesthetics. I am pleased with how this piece turned out.