Broadmoor Rose on Hardwood Floors

When the Broadmoor Resort was building their new Golf Clubhouse one of my commissions was to paint a ten foot rose on the aerobic room floor. Now, can you imagine the many directions I could have gone with this concept?

Should the rose be red, white, pink, yellow and then . . . all those different varieties. Tag Galyean, the architect in charge, wanted it to look as though someone had tossed a rose onto the floor albeit ten foot long.

After our meeting I decided to stop by a floral shop to pick up several different types of roses in a variety of colors. What a great excuse to buy roses! When I returned home I proceeded to take photos of each rose from many angles and continued doing so throughout the following week as the blossoms were opening.

My thought process was . . .

1. The rose needed to be recognizable from a distance

2. White wasn’t a good fit with the color of the floor

3. There wouldn’t be enough contrast if the blossom were pale yellow

4. From a distance deep red could look like a huge puddle of red paint or worse.

5. The deep red also seemed a bit too formal for an aerobic room.

6. Pink seemed too foo foo, too feminine.

My decision was to paint a yellow rose with petals tipped with deep red. A bit less formal than red yet still quite elegant. A petal off to the side seemed appropriate if someone were to have tossed a rose onto a floor. After this decision was made it was time to dig in and design the rose.

Just to give you a bit of background . . . When I began working in the marketing department at Fort Carson many years ago I remember being sent to Denver to take a computer class. The entire drive to Denver I heard constant chatter in my head in regard to what a waste of time it was to be taking a computer class when all I wanted to do was paint! Well, someone far more intelligent than we mere mortals was guiding me even though I was kicking and screaming as I went.

You see, after working on a computer designing brochures, flyers, posters, and even wine bottle labels for a few years, when it came time to design that rose for the aerobic room floor at the Broadmoor I new how to save hours of design time. I sketched the rose on legal size paper and scanned it into my computer then made it ten foot long. My software allowed me to tile the rose. Simply put this means that a portion of the rose printed out on many, many pieces of paper which had to be taped together.

After the rose was taped together I needed to adjust the diameter of the stem, making it narrower. You see, roses have very broad woody stems and when it was printed out, although it was proportionate, it looked way out of proportion. If I hadn’t taken the computer class I would have been sketching and re-sketching for several days. My angels were looking out for me after all. So, have you had a time when you had to do something that seemed like a total waste of time but actually turned out to be a blessing?

Here are a few pics of the Broadmoor Rose.

Rose on Broadmoor Aerobic Room Floor, 10 feet long

Rose Petal Painted on Broadmoor Aerobic Room Floor

Thirty-two inch Rose Blossom Painted on Broadmoor Resort Aerobic Room Floor

The Broadmoor Rose can be purchased as a framed watercolor or as a fine art note card. What a perfect gift. Check out the assorted boxed floral watercolor fine art note cards, box of eight for only $15.