Painting Pink Roses and Purple Songbirds

Pink. Purple. Soft. Sweet. Perfect colors for a baby girl’s room. Or in this case, a wall hanging for a baby girl’s room.

I was a little girl. Once. A very long time ago. And I don’t remember having a pink room. In fact, for my 8th birthday I was surprised with a bedroom makeover in colors of white and royal blue. No pink. No purple.

Where is it written that pink and purple are girl’s colors anyway? I mean, who decided that pink would be for girls and blue for boys?

I’ve never read it. It wasn’t taught in school. But somehow my grandson knew it at before he was 3.

note: this is another post-within-a-post. The painting post is in italics. The rest is just my daily rambling.

I painted the ribbon banner first and sketched the birds on either side, as if they’re holding the ribbon.

Any time we’d color or paint, Grandson would hand me the pink and purple. “Here Gramma, these are your colors ‘cause you’re a girl.”

Who taught him that? He certainly didn’t get it from me. He didn’t get it from his mother ‘cause she doesn’t even like pink.

The birds were painted soft pink first and then I applied a soft lavender glaze over the pink.

I mean, seriously, even McDonald’s has ‘boy’ toys or ‘girl’ toys.

That came out all wrong.

They have toys for little boys or toys for little girls.

Better?

I liked the undertones of pink showing thru the lavender. It softened the purple.

And nowadays, I’ve noticed that more and more men are wearing pink. Pink shirts. Pink ties.

It looks good on most of them.

But how many of them would dress their sons in pink? Not many, huh?

Some eyes and a little beak make all the difference though.

So now it’s okay for men to wear pink, but not little boys, I guess. Where is this stuff coming from?

Is it just our culture, our country? Or is it worldwide?

I wasn’t wild about the tail feathers. Something just looked ‘off’.

So I positioned a few of the roses to camouflage the tailfeathers.

Yeah. I think it’s a whole ‘men are from mars, women are from venus’ thing.

After I ‘roughed’ in all the roses and rosebuds, I painted some leaves in the same shade as the bookcase and wall mural.

But that still doesn’t explain why the thinking that ‘pink is for girls and blue is for boys’.

Then I painted some tiny tendrils, weaving around the ribbon and the rod holding the ribbon.

Don’t get me wrong – I think pink and purple are lovely colors for little girls. And even some big girls.

Since the green is very light and pastel, I underpainted with White on the rod, then applied the pale green over the white.

I guess the reason behind this color consideration is that Grandson recently turned four.

Four! My little chubby baby has been replaced by a ruff-n-tumble all-boy little boy.

After ‘googling’ roses and rosebuds so I could have some different perspectives of the blossoms, I filled in the centers.

And while I admire the little man he’s becoming, I can’t help but miss the toddler who couldn’t bear to let his gramma out of his sight.

The tendrils have tiny small leaves in the same shade of green as the larger leaves.

Oh, he still likes me around – just as long as I have my camera and I’m watching him in his latest endeavor.

And he has a few new ones, thanks to his dad – my youngest son.

We’ll get to the hand lettering later. Let’s just say it took me more than a few tries.

Like a baseball pitching machine, a football ‘tire’ to practice his throwing, and . . .

. . . a skateboard! {administer Valium now, please}

A Spiderman skateboard, to be precise, complete with hand guards, elbow and knee pads, and a matching Spiderman helmet.

In red and blue.

I wasn’t prepared for this, this leap out of babyhood into . . . skateboards?!?

It’s just all too much for this grandma.

I have to go now. And find my pink blankie.