Paper Roses with Watercolor

1. Introduction: Hi there and welcome. In this short and simple class, I'm going to show you how to make beautiful paper roses using just two things you probably already have at home, napkins and watercolor. My favorite watercolors to use in this project are these liquid watercolors from Ecoline. This is a fun and relaxing little project that anyone can do. No experience needed, just a willingness to get a bit creative. For the project of this class, you will make at least one lovely paper rose. And if you're feeling generous, maybe even a whole bunch to brighten up your space or share with someone special. So grab your napkins, watercolors, and let's get started. 2. Paper Roses with Watercolour: Okay, so I have these serviettes. They're just normal white serviettes and they have three layers. In the first step, I want to separate these layers because the thinner the layers, the nicer the rose actually turns out. So I'm going to start doing that by finding the corner. Sometimes it helps to kind of try and separate it from this side. Just kind of pull gently at it. Don't worry if it breaks a little bit. It doesn't need to be completely intact. We want to avoid breaking it completely, but it doesn't matter if there's a little tear in it. So just one layer. Put that aside for now. Now we separate the last two layers, same again. I'm just tugging at it really gently. And then we have three layers. Out of these three layers, we can make three roses. The first thing I want to do now with these layers is to add the color. For that, I'm actually just going to put down another couple of napkins. I've covered my table, but I'm also going to put down some napkins because sometimes there's really interesting byproduct results when we do these things. So I'm just going to lay out the napkin on the table. I want to protect the table, but I also want to see if I can get some interesting results. Now, another thing. You could also add the color without separating the napkins first, but I find that sometimes then it's harder to separate them without breaking the napkins once the colors on. So let's start. I'm just going to start by scrunching up the napkin a little bit. Just lit this, maybe make a little part in the center where I can drift in the color. And then I'm just going to do that with the other two layers as well. Scrunch it up a little bit, not too much. We want to try and get the ink onto most of this napkin. It doesn't matter if there's a little bit of white still over, but you can see you've already shaped it into a bit of a rose, but this is not how the rose is going to be shaped in the end. So you just scrunch and then separate it a little bit. Okay. Then I'm just going to start with my lightest color, which is going to be this yellow. I've got these eco line liquid watercolors from talons, and this is number two oh five. I haven't tried it with other inks. These watercolors have worked really well. I could imagine that ink would also work quite well. I haven't tried it with alcohol inks, either, so I've only tried it with watercolors, but as I say, you can experiment with different kinds of inks or watercolors. You can also use solid watercolors, but I find that this is just easier because it's got this really handy little dripper so I can just drip it right onto the serviett. So I'm just going to do that. Just add a few drops. Then maybe also here. You can add the color when the serviette still intact before separating it, but then you get three results that are fairly similar. This way, you have three results that are completely different. Next, I'm going to add the slightly orange red. It's again, Ecoline number 236. And I don't want to soak it too much and as you can see, the watercolor actually expands with time, and then I might add this red, which is a little more red and less orange. Again, just dripping it onto the serviette can be experimental here as well with how much and where you play the watercolor. Maybe you want to have one that's more orange, maybe you want to have one that's more red. Now I'm going to add this color, which is a little bit more magenta, it is actually magenta, number 337. Then there's a big chance element in this as well because we don't really know what's going to be the part of the rose, what's going to be the stem. That's the interesting part just experimenting and seeing what happens. A little bit on this one. Maybe this one's going to be pretty magenta. Then last but not least, I'm going to use a little bit of green just because there is green in the stem. I'm not going to be able to be very precise here with where I put this and that it is the stem in the end, but I think it will just look good anyway. To have a little bit of green in there. Here, maybe underneath a little bit. A couple of drips here and there. You can see under here, there's hardly any color yet, so a lot of green here. It's pretty good already and under here, there's not very much clack color either, so I am just going to apply green. Now I'm just going to wait for that to dry. That might take an hour or so because the napkin is really soaked now with this ink or with this watercolor. If we try and separate it now, it's probably going to break. I'm just going to be really careful and just unfold it a tiny bit because otherwise, when it's dry, it's also probably going to stick together a little bit. Oh yeah, just separating it a little bit. Don't try and open it up completely because then it is going to rip. I'm going to leave that there. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, I recommend you wear some gloves. I don't really mind getting my hands dirty. Especially with watercolor, just washes out, but if you're using ink, it's probably not a bad idea to use some gloves. I don't want to separate this too much either because you can see there's a lot of white there still. If you press that onto the already drenched parts, you can see that the watercolor is going to come in there as well. Maybe I'll just do that a little bit here. Going to spread. Here a little bit. If you feel like there's too much white on your napkin, you can obviously always go ahead and just add some more color. You might just do that here with this one. It's a little bit more magenta. Okay. I think that's quite enough now. Maybe just a little bit more green. All right, that's enough for that. And then this one here. I'm just going to let those dry now. Now my three layers are dry and I have chosen this one to demonstrate how to make the rose. Because I quite like the green part here, I can use that for the stem, and then I can use either this side or this side for the rose bud. And what I want to do first of all, is just scrunch that up again. I feel like the rosebud always looks really cool when it's scratched and then unfold. You can see I've separated my napkin, as well. I want to be really careful when you separate it and make sure that it's dry. I think I'm going to use this side for my rosebud. I quite like that there's a little bit of green up here as well. And I'm going to start on this side because I think that if I roll it up this way, then I'm going to have a little bit more green on the last part of the roll. I'm just going to start by rolling this up a little bit loosely. So that I get a nice loose rosebud at the side. And you just keep rolling rolling rolling rolling. And then once you've got it to the stage, you want to pinch where you would like your rosebud to end. I'm going to pinch here, and this will be my rosebud. Okay, you want to go in the direction which the servit is folded in this way. So rolling in this direction. Okay, and pinch, make sure you pinch firmly but not too hard so that you don't break the fabric of the servit and then eventually you will want to bring out the leaf and the leaf is going to be from this part of the seriate so you can see the seriate sticks out. You fold that up upwards and then again, you pinch where you want the leaf to end. If you want a larger leaf, you have to pull it out a little more. If you want a small leaf, you just tuck it in there and then pinch again. I'm pinching right here, and then you keep rolling. In the same direction, and you find that the lower part of the stem is probably going to be a little bit bigger than the top part of the stem, and you just keep rolling. Okay. So you can see that once it's all rolled up, we have a beautiful rose. Now we can repeat this process with the other two layers of our napkin and make a bunch of roses or make more with different colors. What you can also do is just make the rose without using any color on the napkin. For example, if you're waiting at a restaurant or a cafe or at a bar for your coffee or a drink or your food, you can just go ahead and make paper roses out of whatever color napkins they have there and go and practice. I hope you enjoyed this class and I can't wait to see all your beautiful roses.