Greeting the Morning

Greeting the Morning Original Oil on Board 20cm x 25cm by John McCartin

John’s Inspiration: “I was sitting in the backyard enjoying a cup of coffee with my beautiful wife. Speaking of beautiful (I was telling her how beautiful she was) … take a look at those roses! She was not impressed.”  This group of roses are neither hybrid tea nor floribunda but are old fashion roses. They are commonly misunderstood roses and are often accused of only flowering once or of being very large growers. This is not always the case as many have repeated flowering and most grow to the same height as floribundas. Many of these shrub roses will thrive in conditions that are unsuitable to hybrid teas or floribundas. The shrub roses are the ideal cottage garden type, typically with pink shades, overblown and full of fragrance”.

The Queen of Flowers, the rose has been grown and loved by man from earliest times.  There are about 125 different species of roses occurring naturally throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arctic to the tropics, with many species freely hybridizing in the wild. The first known representations of roses have been dated somewhere between 1700 and 2000 BC and by about 1200 AD, the earliest domesticated groups, the Albas, Centifolias, Damasks, Gallicas and Scots Roses had already begun to evolve. Hybrid Tea roses are the most popular group of roses. The flower stems are long and the blooms are usually on single stems or with several side buds. The flowers are very shapely, of medium sized or larger with many petals forming a central cone. They flower from late spring to autumn and make excellent cut flowers.

Floribunda roses are often said to be more colourful than the hybrid tea rose as their flowering is more profuse and they stand up to wet weather better, and are unrivalled for providing a colourful bedding display. The floribunda bears its flowers in clusters or trusses and several blooms open at one time in each cluster. It can be grown as a bush or as a standard rose and flower continuously from late spring to late autumn.

John McCartin was born in Sydney on March 9th 1954, and showed remarkable drawing ability at a young age and felt strangely attracted to the Australian landscape.  Painting as a hobby since 1974, John has now taken on landscape painting more seriously and on a professional basis since 1991.   He has been influenced greatly by artists such as Hans Heysen, Elioth Gruner and Arthur Streeton whose unpretentious works have inspired him over many years. In 2011 John won International Artist Magazines prestigious first prize, making him ‘Best artist in the world’.  It was a complete surprise to a humble John, yet a reward for the incredible artworks he produces.  As part of his prize, John was given the opportunity to travel and paint through the English countryside & through areas of Europe.  His six-week study tour created some amazing paintings, of which this is one.  John who lives in South Australia travels widely to capture his subjects, always making sketches and studies as he travels.  John has been described by many of Australia’s leading artists as one of the most talented artists in Australia and now the world agrees! John has won 115 international art awards and his paintings are excellent investments.