Drawing Flowers from References: Stylized Rose Illustration in Procreate | Iva Mikles | Skillshare
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Drawing Flowers from References: Stylized Rose Illustration in Procreate

teacher avatar Iva Mikles, Illustrator | Top Teacher | Art Side of Life

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:30

    • 2.

      Canvas and Setup

      0:43

    • 3.

      References

      7:38

    • 4.

      Rough Sketch

      5:11

    • 5.

      Clean Sketch

      6:04

    • 6.

      Base Color

      6:25

    • 7.

      Petal Outline

      3:00

    • 8.

      Shadows

      2:04

    • 9.

      More Shadows

      7:45

    • 10.

      Highlights

      2:03

    • 11.

      Details

      2:29

    • 12.

      How did it go?

      0:55

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About This Class

Explore drawing stylized flowers based on references.

In this class, you will discover how you can combine different references into one illustration to make your art more unique and not just a copy of one reference image. 

In the step-by-step lessons, I will show you how to combine references into a rose illustration.

Have fun!

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Iva Mikles

Illustrator | Top Teacher | Art Side of Life

Top Teacher

I am super happy that you are here! :)

I am Iva (rhymes with "viva"), and I'm a full-time illustrator, teacher, and nature enthusiast.

I love illustration in all its forms and my goal is to bring you to a world full of happiness, color, and wonder in the form of fun and helpful classes.

I'd love for you to have fun while learning, so I always aim for a fun, positive, actionable, and inspiring creative experience with all my classes.

I love when you share you had many "AHA" moments, learned valuable time-saving tips, gained confidence in your skills, and that it is much easier for you to illustrate what you imagine and you are very proud of your finished work.

I want to help you on your art journey with what I learned along the way by ... See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to a new class. In this class, we will be drawing flowers from reference, and more specifically, we will be drawing rose and we will look at variety of references and I will show you how I combine these references into one illustration. Hi, I'm Eva, and I'm a full-time illustrator based in Central Europe. During this class, we will first look at references, and then we will go through the demonstration, and I will show you step-by-step how I would apply these references into an illustration. There are many different types of roses and ways how to draw a rose, and this is just one of the ways to do it. I will guide you through every step of the process. Even if you don't have any experience with Procreate or drawing, try to have fun during the process and in the end, you can end up with this beautiful pink rose with a blooming flower head. We will start off with a rough basic sketch. Then we will redefine the sketch. Afterward, we will add basic colors, and then we will dive into adding details. Of course, some lighting effects like shadows and highlights to bring more interesting details to our rose illustration. I hope when you watch and follow, you will feel super happy about what you created and you will feel like, wow, I can't wait to share my rose illustration. When you are sharing it on Instagram, please make sure that you tag me in the image, not only in the description, because that way I can see your illustration and maybe you will see it in one of the next videos. Like these amazing illustrations made by wonderful creative people who watch my classes. If you don't know yet, you can find even more drawing tutorials and classes. They are Procreate and other tutorials, and I have more than 27 classes. There is a variety from beginner level to more advanced levels, and you can also find different topics. Without further ado, let's start and see you in the class. 2. Canvas and Setup: [MUSIC] The canvas size is 3,000 by 3,000 pixels, and the color profile is sRGB. I link the color palette in the description, if you want to use the same color palette as I'm using during this class. We will hang out together for awhile. If you want bring some water, makes some tea, maybe a different drink or prepare a snack. I usually have a coffee or water nearby. I find it important to stay hydrated, so at least get some water. When you are ready, let's get started. 3. References: In this lesson, I will show you a few references and I will tell you more about what I'm considering when choosing reference for drawing flowers. In this case, it will be roses. As you can see here, I have different types of reference images for drawing a rose. Let's look at them one by one. What is great about this first reference image is that I can see the rose heads in different angles, so I have variety to choose from. But on the other hand, I don't see the silhouette of each rose clearly, so I will not be able to draw the shapes easily with this reference, because the roses are overlapping each other in these nice bouquet. In addition to this, I don't see the bottom parts of the stem of the roses in case I want to draw them. To compare with the second reference image, which is this nice pink rose, is that one image is from the side view and other image is from the top view. I can use the yellow roses to draw them in the side view and I can see how the roses are growing from the top view on the pink reference image. [MUSIC] What I like on the second reference image with the pink rose is that I can see the rose from the top view, as I mentioned, and I can see the petals of this flower head very clearly. I can see the shapes and also the highlights and the shadows. On this third reference with the pink roses, it's easier to see the silhouettes in the side view compared to the first reference, but I still don't see the whole rose. What I like about this reference is that I can nicely see the leaves of the rose bud, which is opened under the rose flower head. Also the shapes of the leaves have interesting bent shapes. Talking about the leaves, for example, if I want to use the reference for the leaf silhouette, this reference is nice, but I will go back to the first reference because I can see the zigzag edge of the leaf, which many people consider a very recognizable for a rose, so I want to use this leaf edge in my illustration. Then I will use the third reference to look at the lines on top of the leaves because they are clearly visible on these reference. Lastly, I found this 3D rose rendering where you can clearly see the rose silhouette, the stem, and the leaves as well. But here, I don't like how the flower head looks. To solve this, I can always go back and use this second reference for the flower head shape and combine all of these references in my final illustration. In addition, I believe it's better to combine more references in your illustration because in that way, you will avoid direct copies of someone else's photography or design, which can be a copyright infringement. To avoid all of this, always try to combine more reference photos or use your own. The same goes for the illustration. If you can always try to create your own designs after you learn something, following it step-by-step, especially if you want to put it in your portfolio or make prints because you can't sell copies of other people's designs or photography. To summarize, always try to use more references or use your own references. Now after we look that how you can choose reference images, let's dive into drawing a rose using these references. 4. Rough Sketch: First click on the wrench icon and activate the Drawing Guide. This grid will help us to create the illustration. Click on the Edit Drawing Guide to make sure you have this pixel size for our grid. As you can see, my pixel size for the grid is 95 in this canvas resolution. When you are happy, click down in the upper-right corner. As you can notice, I have a light yellow set as a background. Go to Layers, select the background layer and choose the light beige yellowy color from the color palette to have a softer paper-like look. You can keep the background white if you prefer, but if you want to keep the same color as me, use the light beige yellowy color from the color palette. Now let's start sketching. For our first rough sketch, I will create a new layer by clicking on the plus sign in the Layers menu. For this part of the process, I will be using my current favorite sketching brush. But you can use any other sketching brush, which comes with procreate. From the brushes which comes with procreate, I like for example, 6B pencil brush or procreate pencil from the sketching folder. The sketching brush that I designed specifically for the rough loose sketching, is because it's actually good for our loose sketching and it helps me to keep the loose strokes. If you want to practice more expressive strokes like this, and if you want to test out some new brushes for sketching, this brush is in my sketching brush set. Now, let's start our rough sketch with a rose head. To get the proportions like I'm using, mark approximately 12 squares based on the grid drawing guide that we opened. Then draw angled ellipse, which is tilted little bit to the left. Now, talking about sketching. You can use dark color for sketching black or gray, but I prefer sketching with more color. In this case, I'm using the dark-red from the color palette for this rough sketching part of the process. Then mark approximately six squares on top of the ellipse and draw a smaller ellipse, which will be a placeholder for the middle part of the rose head. Because we are looking at the rose from a slide top view and also from the side. Then I will mark few lines, how I plan on layering the petals on the rose head using these curved lines. Afterwards, draw a curved line starting from the middle of the bottom of the big ellipse, and this will be the rose stem, as you might have guessed. Then sketch smaller curved line on the right side of the stem, and then add few small leaves on the stem, or maybe we can call it a branch. Then repeat similar shapes on the left side of the stem. Notice that they are wider in the middle part and more pointy at the end of each leaf. Afterwards, repeat it one more time on the bottom right side and add more leaves on this part of the stem and the stem branch as well. When drawing the leaves, try to keep the leaves on the stem smaller than the rose head. We can keep the focus on the flower itself, basically the head of the rose, and the leaves on the stem are not stealing the attention from the rose petals and the rose head, which are always so lovely. Now we have a bunch of nice leaves on the stem. When you are happy with the shape and the placement of the leaves, add a half ellipse under the rows head. This will be the green part where the rose is growing from, the rose bud which is already open under this rose head. Remember that you can always adjust the rough sketch very easily. For example, after sketching the whole rose and seeing the composition, I think that the middle of the rose on the top of the ellipse, which you can see can be a little bit smaller and cuter, and that's why we can adjust this smaller ellipse almost to a circle on top of this rose head. 5. Clean Sketch: Now let's refine the sketch on top of our rough sketch, and we will do this on a separate layer. I will create another layer by clicking on the plus sign. I will also reduce the opacity of the rough sketch. Now for this cleaner sketch, I will take a different brush. From brushes which comes with procreate you can, for example, use the shale brush which you can originally find in calligraphy folder. [MUSIC] I will be using this pencil brush for the cleaner lines. Then adjust the brush to 5%. I will sketch on a new layer, which will be on top of the other layers. Then I can define some of the petals of the rose using elongated C shapes. Start drawing the petals from the middle, which we already marked, and continue drawing the petals of the flower head towards the edge of the ellipse that we marked so we can easily plan the size of the flower head. Remember creating bigger and bigger shapes for the petals towards the edge. Smaller petals in the middle of the flower head and bigger petals on the outside of the flower head. I can also draw some of the petals outside of my base silhouette because it's interesting to have different silhouette and to break off the round shape. Also, try not to draw perfectly smooth lines, and you can create little bit of wavy or bubbly shape because the petals in real life over the rose are sometimes banned on the edges when the flower is open. [MUSIC] When you are happy with the shape and the placement of the petals, add a half ellipse under the rose head. This will be the green part where the rose is growing from. The rosebud, which is already open under these rose head. Now draw a few curved lines to define the stem of the rose more. Then you can add few thorns on the stem using triangles again. [MUSIC] Now let's also redefine the leaves. We can add a little bit of this zigzag edge of the leaf, which is quite recognizable shape for the roses. As before, notice that I'm keeping the leaves more round and they're pointy on the top [MUSIC]. When you are happy with the cleaned-up sketch, let's start adding colors. 6. Base Color: [MUSIC] Now we don't need the rough sketch anymore, so you can reduce the opacity of the rough sketch by dragging the slider to the left or you can also hide the layer by clicking on the tick on the right side of the layer. Then click on the clean sketch layer. Click on the N on the layer and change the blending mode to Multiply. [MUSIC] We will start with the flower head. To add color, create a new layer by clicking on the plus sign. Touch and hold, and drag the new layer under the clean sketch layer. [MUSIC] Then select the third color in the first row, which is this nice pale pink. Afterwards, select the monoline brush, which comes with Procreate. [MUSIC] Set the brush to 30% and follow the clean sketch that you created to draw a silhouette of the rose head. [MUSIC] Close the silhouette, and then you can drag and drop the color into the shape. When you are happy with your flower head, we can repeat the same process by adding color to the bottom part of the flower, which is basically our stem and the leaves. First, we will create the silhouette with the leaves on one layer, and then we can add shadows. To continue, go to the Layers menu and create a new layer. This layer should be under the pink rose head silhouette. Now, go to the color palette and choose the second color from the left in the second row. Then follow the shape of the stem, flower bud, and the leaves to create the green silhouette. Basically the silhouette for everything green. Don't worry, you don't have to make it perfectly clean shape. You can always clean it up after you fill it with color, and see if you like the thickness of the stem or the branches for the leaves. [MUSIC] Remember that you can also rotate the canvas to find a comfortable angle to draw in. I just want to keep the canvas straight so you guys don't get dizzy from me rotating the Canvas all the time while watching this video. [MUSIC] Now when I outlined everything, I can drag and drop the color into the shapes. Just make sure that the shape is connected also under the flower head. [MUSIC] After dropping the color into the shape, I can see that I can make some leaves, branches a little bit more narrow, and so to do that, I think the eraser set it to four percent and delete part of the silhouette. [MUSIC] 7. Petal Outline: [MUSIC] Now go to the wrench icon to access settings. In the canvas, you can disable the drawing guide now because we don't need it anymore. I will also hide the references and move the rows to the middle of the canvas. To do that, you can select the layers by dragging to the right on each layer. Then using the selection tool, move everything to the middle of the canvas. Now we will start drawing the outlines for the petal shape so we can have the petals more defined in our rose illustration, we'll have more details. Now we will create another layer by clicking on the plus sign again. The new layer should be above the pink rose head silhouette. I will also select another brush for this part of the process. I will use my smooth wash brush from my gouache set for this part. You can keep the monoline brush for this part as well so you don't need to use my gouache brush. Now select this second color in the first row. Set the brush to five percent and create nice outlines for the petals on top of the flower shape. We're creating these new outlines so we can draw on a separate layer easier to add shadows later in the process. [MUSIC] 8. Shadows: Now I can create another layer which will be for the shadows for our petals. Click on the plus sign again and we will make sure that the layer is under the outlines of the petals and above the base silhouette. From the brushes which comes with procreate, you can use the shale brush, if you don't have the gouache brush set. Now take the fourth color in the first row and set the brush size to eight percent. Make sure that your brush opacity is set to 100 percent. Then we will add some shadows in the areas between the flower petals and in the middle of the flower where there is less light on the flower head. To create the shadows, I'm following the outlines of the petals as my guide. To grow these shadows, I'm using shapes resembling half ellipsis thicker in the middle and more narrow on the edges as I'm trying to recreate how the shadows would look in the real life when the light is casting the shadows from the top on the rose head. [MUSIC] Now let's add some color variety in form of shadows to the green part as well, which is the stem and the leaves as you might have guessed. 9. More Shadows: Now to add the shadows, we will create another layer so it's easier for us to follow and basically color only within the base silhouette and this time we will use clipping mask. From the drop-down menu, we can select the clipping mask and clip this layer to our silhouette of the stem and in that way we will be drawing only within the silhouette of the stem layer. Now select the third green color from the left on the second row from the color palette. Then paint on the half of the leaf to create the color variety. In this case, we are not creating realistic light, but stylized coloring of the leaves by just coloring half of them. Some of them will be lighter and some darker. Add this green tone only to some of your leaves. Now go back to the color palette and select the fourth color in the second row to paint the half of the other leaves. [MUSIC] Then go to the color palette and select the fifth green color in the second row, and paint under the flower head, as well as the lower half on some of the leaves. [MUSIC] For little bit of variety you can also draw smaller triangle shapes on some of the smaller leaves. Then also add this darker green color on the main flower stem in the middle and on the bottom. Then also add this darker green color and paint the flower head, as well as the lower half on some of the leaves and on the main flower stem in the middle and on the bottom. Now, let's add more shadows to the rose head. Create a new layer under the outlines of the petals layer and choose the fifth color in the second row. Now, let's add some shadows to some of the corners of the petals because there is basically less light getting into these parts of the flower. [MUSIC] Now let's add more definition with even darker shadows. To do that, we will this time stay on the same layer and use the silhouette of our darker shadows that we just created. To do that, go to the Layers Panel, Click on the Layer Thumbnail and select Alpha Lock this time. Then go to the color palette and select the sixth color in the first row and the draw within our existing shadows. Again, just in the corners of the petal shapes. [MUSIC] 10. Highlights: [MUSIC] We can also add some highlights on top of the flower. To do that, we can create another layer above the shadow layer. Now, we don't need the sketch anymore so you can hide the layer by clicking on the tick on the right side of the layer. Click on the plus sign and this layer is still below the outline layer just to keep the clean a look of this illustration because we spend quite some time already to create this nice and clean outlines. Now we can draw with the same brush on top of some of the petals with our lighter color. Now select the first color in the first row. We will draw a few highlights on some of the petals. As you probably notice, these are not realistic highlights, but stylized suggestions of the highlights that I like to use when I draw stylized flowers. This became part of my style when drawing flowers. You can experiment with different shapes on how to create stylized highlights and also shadows, of course, on the flowers to find your own unique style. For example, you can use dots instead of the lines. [MUSIC] 11. Details: Now let's add few stylized details on the leaves as well. To do that, create a new layer above the shadow leaf layer and select the clipping mask again. Take the first color on the second row and draw a line in the middle of each leaf with few lines going from the middle on the leaf towards the edges. Remember that you can also rotate the Canvas to find a comfortable angle to draw in. I just want to keep the Canvas straight so you guys don't get dizzy from me rotating the Canvas all the time while watching this video. Now let's add some darker color as well. Take the first color on the third row, and continue drawing on the same layer on the few remaining leaves. Repeat the same process few times on the other leaves. Line in the middle of the leaf and few shorter lines going from the middle towards the edges of the leaves. [MUSIC] There you go. We have this super beautiful rose illustration, and I hope you are happy and super proud about what you created. I also hope that you'll share it with others. Don't forget to tag me so I can find the illustration. Again, thanks for being here, and see you in the next video. 12. How did it go?: [MUSIC] How did it go? I can't wait to see all your awesome artwork. Please share your drawings and illustrations, also the work in progress if you want, in the project section. If you want to expand on the knowledge you'll learn in this class, you can watch my other classes about characters and also about colors called color palette and color and light masterclass. Visit my picture profile to find them. If you would like me to share your projects on Instagram, please tag me in the Instagram stories, in the post and post description so I can help you and your art to be discovered by more people. Thank you so much for watching and see you in the next class.