Happy June to you, Creative Friend!

In continuing with the Birth Flower Series, today we are going to learn how to paint stunning striped roses and honeysuckle to celebrate the June birthday.

One of the things I'm most excited about is that we'll be painting using a life reference. The roses come from my garden and they make the perfect project for us to explore this summer!

As with all my classes, my hope is to offer you a comprehensive study, providing the instruction and education necessary to achieving success and leaving you with a sense of anticipation to keep exploring. I'll be providing numerous options on how to approach these roses, and inviting you to find the style that best suits your artistic voice.

Early Practice:

As always, we will take a few moments to look closely at the roses we'll be painting, calling out any details that may feel significant and special. This time will be used to stir inspiration and help you collect information about the flowers.

Exploring Shape:

Next, armed with our brush, we will move into building our muscle memory by sketching out the shapes of the roses, honing in on the general size of petals, the overall shape, and how the petals ruffle. We'll use a single color to do this, which will prevent us from wanting to move ahead and begin pinning down the details. This exercise is meant to help you better understand the subject matter and provide confidence when we paint our main project.

Class Project:

After we've explored our roses in great depth, we will move into the class project where we will expand upon our piece by adding the honeysuckle to the bouquet. This delicate filler flower adds balance and provides a fragility benefiting and serving the painting as a whole.

Skill Level:

Due to the complex nature of these roses, I am labeling this as an intermediate class. Ambitious beginners are always welcome to join in, however it is recommended that the material covered in the Tulips and Floral Elements courses be learned first to master the basic foundation of watercolor.

With that in mind, let's begin!

SUPPLIES

PAPER:

Canson 140 lb. cold press paper

BRUSHES:

Princeton Umbria Filbert Size 4 (2 brushes)

Princeton Velvetouch Filbert Size 4

Princeton Velvettouch Filbert size 6

Princeton Heritage Round Size 3

Princeton Heritage Round Size 6

PAINTS:

Daniel Smith:

Undersea Green (PB 29), Burnt Umber, Rich Green Gold, Hansa Yellow Deep

Maimeri Blu:

Verzino Violet, Permanent Red Light, Rose Lake, Naples Yellow

Additional Supplies:

Paper towel, palette/plate, water cup, iPad for reference images

Intro:

Welcoming you to class and talking briefly about what you will learn today.

Supplies:

Discussing the supplies you will need to complete this class.

Observing The Live Roses

We'll begin our time together by observing the roses I have brought into the studio, taking a few moments to point out details that feel significant and special. You might wish to jot down these notes to refer to when we paint our main piece.

Sketching With The Paint Brush:

Next, we'll spend a few moments sketching the outline of the roses with a paint brush to help you better understand flower shape and petal posture. This exercise is essential for ingraining muscle memory and building confidence; most importantly it will help you work out the "bugs" and allow you to work more efficiently and with more success when you begin to paint "for real."

Petal Process:

From start to finish I will walk you through the creation of an entire petal to provide a solid understanding of the steps needed to complete the roses. Here we will use a blend of wet-into-wet technique and also applying opaque paint to dry media. This will give you a couple options about how you might choose to create your roses.

Painting The Purple Tiger Rose Part I:

In this lesson we will use begin painting the Purple Tiger Rose, laying the foundation of the shape, arranging the petals and painting the first layer of details.

Painting The Purple Tiger Rose Part II:

To complete this rose we will now apply the final layer of details, adding color blocks, speckles, and gestural outlines to provide structure. We will attempt to look at the rose as a whole so as not to include every detail but only those that feel most significant and special.

Painting the Coral Rose:

Using the lesson mentioned above we will create the second rose featured in our course using a different palette. We will focus on petal posture that will serve the overall composition of the piece.

Painting the Red and Peach Rose:

For our third and final rose we will lean on the techniques used in the previous lessons, making one big modification to the size of the rose. Including this petite version will add an element of variety to the painting.

Painting the Stems and Leaves:

Using our Undersea Green and Green Gold mixtures we will add stems and leaves to the bouquet. Allowing these to dry for a bit, we will then add veins to the leaves and shadows to the stems to highlight depth and dimension.

Carole Miller

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