How To Draw A Rose...My Adventure

I have been crazy for these thorny flowers since forever..their fragrances..colors..texture of the petals..many types and names and all that come with it.... So..since abt 6yrs back after accomplishing decoupage.. I have decided that why not try to learn and paint one..Easier said than done..Not as easy as it seems... but they say..it's a learned skill techniques and not really artistic..u..huh...Believing in this..I stride on.. But I have concluded..although you need not be artistic to know how to paint one.. but you do need to have the artistic flair or creativity in making it look realistic and not too pasted or painted.. to know the fall of lights and structure of the flowers..the shadows..the weight of the blooms in bouquets and so on.... As such..I follow all what they say in the books.. I tried short-cuts here and there but...I strongly believe.. you need to have patience.. practise.. tools of the trade readily available and definitely knowledge on how to go about. Honestly...I am still going about it..I guess..I need to stick to just a type of rose or maybe two.. he..he..and learn how to structure the bloom and paint them with the chosen colors.... So dear friends..if you are just starting out...These tips might help you....

1. Learn the painting terms so that you can easily follow the instructions...Next..after learning how to load the brush....knowing how your brush will look like wet..drying up..enough colors or not enough colors..well blended or half here to there... proceed to...

excerpt : Donna Dewberry

excerpt : Tara Leigh

2. Practise and pracise.....not in painting the flowers but the basic strokes..the comma stroke..wiggle comma stroke..the U-stroke..upside down U-stroke..maybe the C stroke..S-Stroke.. Do for every type of strokes nearly 100..200...times or more..keep the practise sheets and look at when you first do it and when you have done say 200..? Takes a long time ya? But it's worth it.. You will be able to see..a nice stroke..an incomplete stroke..

excerpts : Priscilla Hauser

3. Experiment more on the strokes....do a wriggle stroke or an upturned/overturned stroke...

excerpts : Priscilla Hauser

4. More or less satisfied now...sketch a shape of rose..somesay...sketch a cup & saucer type... or just two circles type... For me..I look at where and how many are the required strokes..how to position them...An image of the steps will be good. Choose the type of rose that you would like to paint...Choose the colors that go with it...Standardized the methods..with background..without background base....What type of brush you gonna use...flat brush or angular bruses... Refer to the many artiste..the ones I know were..Priscilla Hauser..Donna Dewberry..Gretchen Cagle.. Ros Singleton..Ros Stallcup...Jan Fox...Ginger Edwards and locals to Malaysia..Aniza..Zaitun..Nora and Zahir.... Laksmi..Jen... ZuG...to name a few.. These are known teachers.... Love how their work looks like....Am still taking/planning to take lessons from them...

5. Set a time..when you can have the peace or comforts to do it....But finished your strokes first before you embarked on actualy start to paint the rose..Colors choices are important to me too... so that you would love the outcome.. I started mine with a shocking pink and white..urghh.. I don't like its brightness and the jarring mistakes I was doing.... You need to give yourself time.. encouragement and also to analyze your progress.. Doesn't matter if somebody says..oohhh..it's easy..it's easy once you get to know how to do it but..as long as you are still doing them..no matter how bad or how good..give yourself a pat...come a time...suddenly will say..I like your work and the hardtimes suddely left you... But do not savor this too much coz'if you dont practise it will get rusty..coz' remember! This is a learned skill not a natural ability...therefore the ease will only come with practise..emmm..I don't think you can even say that you can do it wit your eyes closed..ha..ha.... Anyway..come a time you will be happy with your work but..if you do not start yourself right..you gonna get stuck with the bad habits I so called it..and these are more difficult to rectify...but it's still possible by blanking your mind out and restart all over again..... So.. I will put up some sampels in a while but I have just got to get the writing out of the way.. Happy trying....