Realistic Rose Watercolor Illustration: Painting the Essence of Any Flower

1. Introduction: Nature gives us, It's beautiful gifts in unimaginable colors. We can observe Marvel, touch, and also create. Would you like to learn to paint a realistic looking the rose flower like this one? Then this class is for you. Hello Our friends. My name is Christine and I am a realistic watercolor artists inspired by nature. Art and nature have been my passions for as long as I can remember. I can touch, smell, and feel my chosen subjects and nature never ceases to amaze me. In 2016, I tried realistic watercolor painting for the first time and have never looked back since then, was the best solution for painting anywhere. I went, painting in the park and interesting leaf or sitting at a Trafalgar Square. Now I have my own art community where a shared daily inspiration, short videos about watercolor tips and tricks. Communicate with my art community and inspire for creativity. One of my favorite subjects to paint our flowers. This Skillshare class, I will show you how to paint a realistic rose with watercolors. Starting from materials that I will be using. Mixing watercolors for the rows painting. Actual process of painting realistic grows from the first brushstrokes till the finished painting. In this class, I will teach you different techniques of realistic watercolor painting. Helpful watercolor tips and tricks will share with you white paper fear. How to enjoy the process of painting and how to make your painting look realistic. I will guide you and encourage you step-by-step during this class. Or if you already know how to use watercolors and wants to try realistic watercolor painting. This class is definitely for you. This is a great start for anyone in their realistic watercolor painting journey. You will get access to reference photo, line drawing, process photos, and a finished arose painting photo. Please don't be focused on the end result. The most important is to enjoy the process. The more you will be in the process and less thinking about the end result, the better you will feel and better will be your results. Just like children when they are creating. Thank you and see you in this rose painting class. 2. Class Orientation: Welcome to realistic, gross watercolor painting class. Our main focus for this class is to create vividly looking roast painting with characteristics of the rose, flower. Rose is one of the most loved flowers with a beautiful aroma, but it is also a bit challenging for artists to capture its beauty. I will show you my approach and my technique of recreating this beautiful rose, flower. I choose this rose a little bit challenging subject to paint because I know that my class will help you understand how to recreate this rose flower. Art materials for this class are listed in the description and also in the following video, will explain why I use hot pressed paper and not cold pressed paper, but you can also use cold press paper. The difference is you will not be able to have all their smallest details and smoother result. All the required pigments are listed in the description. But remember, experiment with pigments that you already have in your paint box. Always find time to experiment with watercolors. Search for new watercolor and mixed recipes, explaining and showing step-by-step process of painting this rose flower from the first brushstrokes till the finished result. To create realistic painting, it is not only about the technique and red color mixes, it is also a state of mind patients and some tricks that can be learned. We will discuss all the nuances while painting and recreating this beautiful rose painting. In the next class, I will show you all the necessary art materials that are required for this class, and also some tips and tricks along the way. 3. Art Materials for this Class: In this lesson, I will show you all the required art materials. For this class. We will need paper brushes, watercolors, palettes, paper towel, water jars, glasses. I will explain why we have two erasers, pencils and plain paper. For realistic watercolor painting, I'm using hot press paper, which is 100% cotton smooth paper surface. Let's compare with the cold pressed paper, which is a raw surface paper, also cotton. Let's compare both of these papers and see the difference. It is clearly visible in this example on hot pressed paper, I have much smoother and detailed results. Cold pressed paper withdraw surface isn't allowing smooth washes and super fine detailing. Cold pressed paper is perfect for landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, but for realistic botanical watercolor painting, I prefer hot pressed paper. Here are two rose petals. And you can see the difference how smooth is hot press paper result and slightly rougher result is on cold pressed paper. You need to try, buy or sell to see the difference. Watercolors. I'm taking a separate piece of paper, which can be simple watercolor paper, and we'll paint out pigments that I will be using for this class. And they are lemon yellow, Sennelier, red, alizarin crimson, permanent rose, manganese, violet, Perlin violet, Sap Green, perylene green, and ultramarine blue. You can use pigments that you already have in your paint box. Try and experiment with watercolors that you have Hen write down pigment names that you used for watercolor mixes, brushes for this class. And most of my painting practice, I'm using these two brushes, fine tip brush and round synthetic brush. Round synthetic brush is quite soft for smooth, watery washes. Fine tip brush is for detailing. You can take a piece of paper and before each painting session, try this exercise of different brushstrokes. This is like a warm-up before painting session. Brushstrokes in all directions. Longer, shorter, thinner, thicker. This is a nice start before any painting. Using water in painting, I have to watch her glasses and take a look. These watch her glasses are smaller size than usual. Jars for painting on glass for mixing and cleaning brush. The other one for applying clean layers. When you are washing your brush, don't rub it against the bottom part of the glass that way you are damaging your brush when applying water to paper surface don't go straight from water to paper. You will have too much water on your brush and on the paper surface. Instead, put brush in the water, remove excess amount of water and then apply to paper surface. Now you have consistent amount of water on paper surface. And the first one when we went straight from water to paper, there's too much water. Those puddles shouldn't appear on your paper. When you lift the paper, water shouldn't be dripping off the paper. When applying watercolors on a big amount of water, watercolors start to flow by themselves. This is also the wrong and too much amount of water. Instead, watercolors should be pushed and they create this smooth layer of watercolors. Here, after drying time, we have a crisp edge where it was watered too much and still soft look where we have just enough of water palettes for mixing watercolors. I use ceramic palettes. You can use specifically created palette or a simple dinner plate, but be sure that it is white. Also sushi plate. Here I have my older place, especially for green mixes, for brown mixes and watercolors. Even after many years, you can still use them. That is the beauty of this medium. And another tip, don't wash your watercolor palettes. You can reuse them or for each project, use your own plate or on ceramic palette. For this class, I will use a clean palette so you can see clearly watercolor mixes. The difference between ceramic palette and plastic palette is the way watercolors are behaving on surface. Here you can see on both examples the difference. But again, plastic palettes can be really useful. For example, if you are sketching outside or if you are going somewhere. Ceramic palettes are heavier. Plastic pallets are much lighter. Here I have a mini palette for sketching outside, which is easily attached to my sketchbook. Or when you are traveling, it is important to have live equipment which is easily assembled. And another thing that I constantly have, his paper towel, right hand, I have brush and left hand. I have paper towel all the time when I did my brush in the water than load my brush with water color mixes, remove excess amount on paper towel and then start painting. I don't go straight from watercolor mixes to the painting surface. I have some excess amount on my brush that needs to be removed. I repeat that all the time while I'm painting. Paper towel stays in my left hand all the time. Before we go any further, be sure that all art materials are prepared so you can paint without distraction. In the next lesson, we will prepare line drawing, transfer it, and protect your paper 4. Transferring References and Protecting Paper: This lesson will cover different ways of transferring your line drawing to the paper and how to protect your paper from little mistakes and accidents. Reference and line drawing is provided. But you can also try free-hand drawing and I will show you the basics using plain, simple, plain paper. First, I look at the reference and draw simple form. I'm not concentrating to details, petals, spots, leaves. That will be the last first. I'm looking the main form, this rose is I divided in half. Draw simple lines to place. Leaves. Everything is very raw and approximate. Now the petal placement only with lines, no beautiful curves or ruffles, nothing. You are looking only on the major lines. That way you can freely draw. Don't worry about details. Freehand drawing is an amazing practice for your observation skills. When you are studying your reference with drawing lines, outlines, you are get more used to your subject. You'll start to understand it more. Not just blindly copy line drawing, but you can go more into deep understanding of your reference. This is a nice practice to train your eyesight, to train your hand. But if you really feel bad about drawing and it is so overwhelming for you, you can freely use transferring methods that are so many in these days by transferring from reference, copying. Even you can, if you have a bigger paper you want to transfer and you can use screen transfers. Many great artists of the past use transferring methods. There's nothing bad about that. You shouldn't feel ashamed or somehow worser than other artists. In these days, professional artists are also transferring for more accuracy, for more precision and to save time. But freehand drawing will definitely help you understanding how the form is built, how the subject is formed. And only now I'm going into details with those beautiful wavy petals. After all the main lines and forms have been placed. Now is the time to go for detailing. The same is with the painting. Details are the less that we are painting. What catches our eyesight in the first place. That is the last thing we are drawing and painting. After I finished sketch, I have transparent paper on which I will transfer outlines. And these outlines will be placed onto real paper. Second method is with transparent paper. You can straight go to your screen and transfer the reference with all the details, of course. Now how to transfer line drawing from simple paper printout to original paper on which you will be painting. I have a graphite stick. You can use simple pencil on the other side of the line drawing printout. I'm covering all the surface with the graphite. Be sure to cover all details. Stems, leaves, turnaround, line drawing, cut out so that the line drawing paper fits your original paper and you see the placement of the subject. Placing it carefully on original paper. We don't want to smudge. Watercolor paper should be clean and neat. Now with a ruler, I'm checking placement of the line drawing so it is placed in the center if you need to, you can slightly with fingers move it. Better check twice so everything is neat and clean and in the center. Now with a little bit harder pencil, I'm going over the lines. All lines are important, all details are important. If something will be left out, you will not painted. That's how it works. Even if you think, Oh, I will definitely painted Better to draw it. And then you will definitely painted, while I'm transferring and outlining lines, I am also have the reference right beside me on the screen or on the other gadgets. So I see what time transferring with this transferring method, I'm also getting more familiar with my subject. Another thing, when you are transferring stem outline, it's slightly smaller because when you will be painting, you can quite often go over the lines. And if you will have it thinner than you can freely go over the lines, you will finish with nice, nice-looking stamp. If you will outline it thicker and then go over the lines, you can finish up with a really thick looking stamp, which will look unnatural with beautiful flowers. Better to have even thinner stem than it looks in the reference. It will look more beautiful. Now a little bit about the spots I transferred almost, or spots from this rose bud, left some out and maybe I will add them during the painting process, you can be more artistic here, but look at the direction of these spots. They are placed in certain direction which we need to follow. Check twice if you transferred all details, remove line drawing. Now the graphite lines are very thin at this point. So I'm taking mechanical pencil which is 0.3. And very lightly this is important, very likely don't push too hard. I'm going over the lines. Again. Don't push pencil. Try to hold your hand. Very relaxed and your pencil don't squeeze it. If you start to feel during drawing or painting process some pain and stress in your hand. It means you are pressing too hard. Teachers self-control yourself to hold your tool slightly. This will help with painting and also your hand will not get tired too quickly. And as this rose is very light, in some areas, almost white. We need very, very transparent amount of graphite, so it's not visible through layers. Again, all details are very important. All lines, little spikes, everything. Everything is transferred and outline. And now with an elastic eraser, I will remove the excess amount of graphite of the paper. This eraser can be used many, many times. Roll over your paper. And this eraser will pick up the excess amount of graphite. At this point, everything looks slide, but I still need some areas to be lighter using simple eraser and bigger brush. Here are the areas that I need to make lighter. The most lightest part of this rose need lesser amount of graphite. Carefully here, don't rub too hard against the paper with the eraser. You can damage paper. And I'm removing dust of erasing with wider, bigger brush. I'm not using hands because our hands tend to get dirty. And when we are using hands against beautiful white paper, we can smudge it with graphite or maybe some dirt. Now we need to protect our paper so that the background of the rows will be clean as paper is. Again, I'm taking plain paper, marking the size of my original watercolor paper. Cutting out that I don't need. Roughly outlining on plain paper. Row silhouette, very roughly. Precision here. Cutting out the outline. Place it back on paper and check if everything is correct. It should be slightly bigger than the outline on your original paper. Check again. Now attaching with tape, plain paper to original watercolor paper. So it stays safe and isn't moving around during the painting process. That way, when we are protecting our original paper, little mistakes like water drops, watercolor drops. This plain paper will protected. Everything is ready for the next part. Make sure you transfer your line drawing that is attached to this class to your original paper and applied protecting cover to your paper. Next lesson is all about watercolor mixing 5. Watercolor Mixing and Color Swatches: In this lesson, we will talk about watercolor makes us how to practice them, how to make color swatches. Watercolor mixes for rows painting, adding water to my color palette, starting with clean permanent rose. Second mix, permanent rose, together with Sennelier read and parallel. And while that will be for the shadow parts of the spots, applying clean manganese violet. Third mix, very light permanent rose together with ultramarine blue and lemon yellow. Adjusting these three pigments until I have very pale gray watercolor makes for the shadow part of the rose head where we see that the white area goes into the shadow. Testing on a piece of paper. This makes should be really, really light. We don't want to have saturated gray watercolor mix. Can see on the paper how lightest gray mix. Also testing darker watercolor mix, writing down pigment names that I used for the exact watercolor mix. So later on you will know which pigments were used for which watercolor mix. Now the green part, Sap Green, perylene green and ultramarine blue, is more a cooler green mix which will be used for rose, flower head leaves writing down recipe and for the stems sap green. Together with perylene green and Indian yellow. For much warmer look, stem is warmer green color and leaves are a little bit cooler. Also adding separately lemon yellow and sap green. For even more brighter and warmer green watercolor mixes writing down recipes. You can write down notes, anything that comes into your mind. So after some while, but when you look at your watercolor makes us you know what you did, you can even come back after month and you will still have all nodes understandable. And no need to mix huge amount of watercolors. You can always remix new amount of water color mixes. While I was making these mixes, I noticed that I made some new recipe of green color. I write down new recipes in my color swatches to keep a record of new watercolor mixes, new ideas. Let me show you how to make these color swatches. I have them for green water color mixes, brown and yellows, pinks and purples, reds and wireless. For this you will need simple watercolor paper, ruler, scissors, puncher, metal clip. I use really simple watercolor paper that I took from my children, divide into paper strips, cut them out. When you have them cut them out. Punch holes, open up metal clip, insert your paper, close the pin, and your color swatch is ready. You can compare with real subject in front of you, find the best watercolor recipe that you premix before or when you are outside and you can take a reference home with you. You can compare, find the right watercolor mix, make notes in your sketchbook. I have a whole sketchbook dedicated only to watercolor mixes. I write down pigments that I have. Pigment names, make different mixes. A ride down, notes some ideas. Watercolor mixes from other botanical artist may color charts. Here, I mixed three pigments and look how many watercolor mixes I achieved. Mixing browns, different kind of brown watercolor mixes. Color wheel. Here I have two different color wheels. You can make this exercise with the pigments you have. This is so interesting and really will help you understand more about watercolor mixes. Here I also took lemon yellow, Alizarin, crimson, and ultramarine blue and mix many, many green color tones. I will place this paper inside the sketchbook, but you can go straight and do these watercolor mixes in the sketchbook. Experiment with pigments you already have for you. Move on to the next lesson. Practice more watercolor mixes. The more you will do it, the more Freire you will feel with watercolor mixes, the more you will get familiar with pigments and how to mix any color tone you need. Next lesson is about water control 6. Water Control: In this lesson, we will talk about one of the most asked questions from my students. Watch her control how I control water during painting. How much water is required for particular painting or subject that you would like to paint, white papers buckling, and everything is flowing into each other. I'm receiving these questions from all around the world and almost every day. First thing about water control is where you keep water while you are painting. These are too big for realistic watercolor painting, especially for smaller size paintings. Look how much water is dripping from my brush. Instead, I use much smaller glasses. I even could use the smallest one. I did my brush, I lift it out and nothing is dripping off because of the amount of water is on the brush. A little bit bigger jar, maybe one drop is dripping off. Now let's compare little jar and nothing is dripping off. Now, the big one, There's a lot of water dripping off, which we don't need on our paper surface that extra water. How much water actually we need for the first layer by comparing the big jar. And if we go straight from water to paper surface, we have too much water on the paper surface. You see these little puddles. We don't need them. This is too much water. If we apply pigment to this amount of water, pigment starts to float on its own, and it is also not the correct amount of water. Also pigments start to flow to the area where the water puddles are reserved. Adding a little bit more of pigment. And it acts on its own, which we don't need. We need to control pigment, not pigment tells us where it should be. Instead from smaller jar. I apply just enough water for the surface to be moist. No puddles, nothing. Applying pigment. Pigment is pushed around that moist surface. It's not floating on its own and we have a smooth layer. If we add a little bit more pigment, you can see, again, it's not floating, it's not moving. I can push it with my brush where I need it to be. The correct way of how I lift my brush from the glass jar. I did brush remove some excess amount and nothing is dripping off. How long should we wait for the layer to get dry? Getting back to those two samples, the first one is already dry and the second one where we had a little puddles is still wet. Five-minutes have passed and it still wet. The first one is dry and I could paint again next layer, but the big jar leaves too much water on paper surface, which leads to uneven pigment layer and water bottles which are really slow in drawing. Y is the paper buckling. On the same example. Let me show you the first one with small amount of water and the second one which is still drying. And we can clearly see that the paper is starting to buckle. Too much water on paper surface is causing paper buckling. Hope this information will help you in your painting process and in your next practices. In the next lesson, we will talk about fear of starting new painting 7. Starting Watercolor Painting: This lesson is about fear of starting new painting. Let's talk about whitepaper fear, or also called blank canvas sphere. It's very common when an artist can start a new painting, a new project, talking from my own experience as well, headed almost every time before new painting and still do in some cases. But how do I get over it? I start, and that is the most important thing. Where and how to start. Not just start from anywhere, but find the best spot, the most easy spot, or the area that is not so important, not in the front lines. Part of composition is the area that requires more attention and that area can be painted later when you already warmed up. My spot where I start is shadow area or some little area that is not so visible straightaway. Now, what can happen if you mess up? Can someone get hurt? Can something really bad happened? Of course not. Look at this painting. I started and I already see some mistakes with the background. Also crisp edges around the area where the flowers are supposed to be. Not even background washes. And I stopped and I already noticed that there's no point in continuing this really terrible to make mistakes. No, never. We can only learn from mistakes. If you're not making mistakes and not failing. It can only mean you are not trying. Everything is learned through mistakes. Now for this video, I will show you what can happen. This is like a maximum what can happen to your work? You can lose a piece of paper and some time that you spend there. That's it. Nobody is judging, nobody's complaining the time painting too bad or making mistakes. It's only a lose of paper and your time. But during this time, you still practiced and learned something new even through failing. But what I love to do is to cherish my first paintings, my trials and failures time-to-time. I take a look and see my journey, see where I was, see how I am going further. Even failures can be cherished in order to come back, take a look, analyze, and learn from our mistakes. Start. With each new work. It will be easier. It is all in our minds. We are in control of our brushstrokes and nothing bad can happen. Here I'm starting our rows painting from little corner. That is almost the smallest part in this composition. I feel safe to start from there with permanent rose, clean pigment. Change your mindset. And in the next lesson, we can start painting this rose 8. First Layers of Realistic Watercolor Painting: This lesson will teach you how to start any realistic watercolor painting. First, watercolor layers, in almost any case, are the same. Let's start the rows painting the first layers. I have paper towel in one hand, brushes in other hand. Clean water, often mixing watercolors, and we need to awake watercolors by a small amount of water. I'm going over all watercolor mixes that we premixed in previous lesson. And paper with line drawing is also ready. I will be painting one petal at a time and only the base color for the rose flower head spots will be painted much later, starting with watery layer for the first petal that is in front of us, first watery layer is really moist, no puddles as you can see, the gray watercolor mix starting from the shadow area. And as you can see, gray watercolor mix is super light. First layer is all about the lightest, the better. Because with watercolors we can always go darker. And the problem is to make something lighter. As I apply gray watercolor layer, I washed my brush cleanest and paper towel and smooth the applied layer with white flowers. This is the base of this flower, is why we need to really go gradually from the lightest to the darkest. Better to add extra layer with watercolors rather than don't know what to do with saturated water color mixes. I'm building tonal values gradually leaving the middle part of the petal light because there is the light we're shining on the surface, this part should stay completely white as it is paper. Now I'm taking finer tip brush, clean, permanent rose, and apply with the side of the brush. Pink outer edge line of this rose petal. As I apply watercolors, I clean my brush, dry it in paper towel and smooth the applied layer of permanent rose watercolors. Everything is super light. Now, a little bit about smoothing. I was saying you need to smooth applied layer. Now I will show you a technical explanation. Here. I apply watercolors, wash my brush, clean it and paper towel until the brush is completely clean and slowly, carefully smooth the applied amount. Wash my brush clean, thin paper towel, and smooth again until I have gradual transition. Getting back to rows painting, moving forward, constantly checking reference. Reference is my guide where I need to paint, how much I need to paint. Open reference right beside this tutorial, zoom in closer the area that you are painting. Pause the tutorial. Take a look closer. Do you see those areas, the time painting by yourself? Moving on to the next petal and I'm skipping petal that is in the middle. So I don't want the first petal to float, float into the second one. That's why I'm skipping the middle petal and going to the left side. Applying permanent rose, washing my brush, cleaning in paper towel and smoothing the applied layer. You need to carefully look here, zoom closer your reference how this little corner of a petal is curving and how this pink area is building on one part, on the upper part of this throws its inner part, then it slowly becomes thinner, and then the pink part goes on to the outer side. With realistic watercolor painting. The most important thing is to carefully observe the reference you have for your painting. We're not just assuming something and painting without looking. And we don't have to, all information is right in front of us in the reference. Moving forward to the next petal. Careful looking how that pink part, how far it is going. We don't want to interact into the other petal. Carefully. Painting with the very tip of the brush. It's all about light here. Better to be lighter rather than darker. A closer look how I'm applying watercolor. So with the very tip of the brush, dry my brush and smooth the applied layer carefully and slowly. We don't need to rush here. If you feel the urge to rush, better to pause, take a break and then come back relaxed. Realistic painting is all about patience and your dedication. There's no need to rush. Moving on to the next petal, this one is the lightest one of all petals that we see on this row. So we need to be extra careful with adding here shadows I will start with a pink edge line. And also my pink edge line in the first layer is not even close to the reference saturation level. That's because we will be layering more lessons, mole, more layers, more watercolors. This is just the beginning. That's completely okay that at this stage, this rose doesn't look like a reference. It is super light. We are just getting started with Weiner to brush applying water and very light amount of gray watercolor mix. Because that part of this petal is in the shadow area. Careful look at the reference and you will notice you can pause the video. Take a look. Little inner corner is pink applying permanent rose. I'm not going to saturate it at this point, just lightly filling all the layers. Now let's apply first layers for the sepals. They look like leaves, but they are not. They are sepals starting with watery layer. And the mix of Sap Green, perylene green, and ultramarine blue. It's much cooler. Green watercolor mix compare to the stem area. But that's how I see in the reference that these sepals are different from the stem and we don't want to make them completely the same green watercolor mix. Again, take a closer look in the reference and notice how green part is darker on the left side. Then the further little part of the sepal is also quite light because light is coming from the left side. And I'll suppose that are on the left are lighter and those words which are on the right are darker. Painting further next sepal. Again, all layers are super light, super transparent. And we see that these sepals, there's a lot of light parts. So we need this background much lighter. When we are painting, realistic painting, we need to look for the first layers beyond those beautiful details that got our attention. And of course those spots catch our attention, but those going to be almost the last ones that we are painting. Now we need to build a solid base. Adding purlin green, and sap green to my color palette. We know which pigments we were using, so don't worry to run out of your watercolor mixes. You can always premix them. Again. Applying this slightly darker watercolor mix to the sepals that we see are completely in the shadow area. There is no light. They are behind the flower head. Flower head is casting shadow and everything there is in the shadow. Carefully painting with the very tip of the brush. Those little corners, little spikes that are coming on the side of the sepals. We need to have super light, super thin edges and those little spikes. Then it's going to be, then it's going to look more realistic, more lifelike. We don't want to have thick spikes on the outer edges of the sepals. Applying a little bit more to this one and smoothing the applied layer. Now, the last part is Tim applying water with the final two, brush and loading brush with pigment starting applying, applied to the right side because the right side is in the shadow. I apply watercolors in the right side and then I smooth out to lighter part, little tip for the stamps. If you know that you tend to go over the edges when you are transferring, draw the stem slightly thinner. That way you will end up with the right size. We don't want to have thick looking stem. Let's look what we have done. We have first layer supplied. We have tonal values, shadow, lights, area. Everything is perfect for the first layer. Be sure to apply all areas with first watercolor layers. Be sure that those layers are transparent and not saturated and also your layers should be dry before moving to the next lesson about deepening the colors 9. Deepening the Colors for Greater Contrast: In this lesson, we will continue with applying layer to the rose petals and we'll be building contrast. After the first layer is dry, we are ready to continue row spacing. Now we will be deepening the colors on the petals, especially shadow area. We pre-mixed gray watercolor mix of permanent rose, ultramarine blue, and lemon yellow. And remember that this watercolor mix is super light, as you can see on my color palette, with a fine tip brush and the very tip of the brush. I'm diluting this water with small amount of water and applying very, very light and transparent amount of this gray mix. Because it is so easy to make something look dirty with a gray watercolor mix. We don't want to dirty look. We want to have a nice shadow area that will help us make this rose look three-dimensional and realistic. As you can see as I'm applying those fine brushstrokes, I'm slowly building this tonal value of the shadow area. From the reference, we can clearly see that the shadow area is very intense. But we will get there with layers, slowly and gradually. Brushstroke. After brushstroke, I have this super light watercolor mix. As I was mentioning with watercolors, we can always build something darker. Problem is to make something lighter. Also, applying fine brush strokes to the other area of the shadow part, the petals. And when you are applying shadow area on one side of the petal like I'm doing right now. Be careful by applying that shadow to the whole surface. We need only the specific areas that are in the shadow. And we can see that from the reference. Reference is our guide. Where we need Shadow, where we need a little bit more contrast, or where we need to leave it light as it is. I'm mostly working on the shadow area and I'm not touching lightest parts because lightest parts are, is the light part of the rows. And we can clearly see that the light part is white, especially in the, where the light sources hitting the surface of the petals. But the main work here is building contrast in the shadow. And with small, many brushstrokes, I'm building this contrast gradually, not going to saturated. It almost looks like the, I don't have watercolor makes on my color palette. But that is enough. That's how light you should be painting. This part of the rose, even the shadow. And it looks like dark in the reference, but we will get there gradually. Let's take a closer look at this section. There's a tricky part where light source shining through petal, which is on the very left side. And it's casting not completely gray shadow on the middle petal. I'm adding to my gray watercolor makes a super small amount of permanent rose to make this gray watercolor mix more closer to pink, pinkish gray watercolor mix. And again, transparently with fine and small brushstrokes. I am flying shadow area in that particular place. And only there because we can see from the reference that that area is somehow different. That's because the light source is slightly different here, because it is shining through the petiole that is right above that place. Has I'm painting along. I notice that there are also another places where this pink gray watercolor mix will give a nice touch. Why it is that we have different gray here. Because white surface is quite tricky surface. It reflects everything that is around it. For example, if this rose would stand right beside a yellow rose, the surface of the white petals will reflect yellow roses color. Now, we don't have yellow rose right beside or something else. It reflects the pink edge lines on the white surface. That's why in some areas, the shadow looks a little bit more pinkish rather than clean gray watercolor mix. But again, we are adding everything gradually. We don't want to rush things. This is super crucial. You can pause the video, take a closer look at each shadow section, studied, observe, and paint what you see. Also, my guidance will help you how to move transparently. This is a really important part where you don't need to rush with realistic painting and especially whites. Subject like this rose. Here I'm applying slightly darker in one particular area because I can see from the reference that there's little false. They are very, very subtle folds, but they make a little bit darker shadow area in some places. Also where we have this curve of the petal. It also creates a cache shadow on the other parts of the petal. Careful observation of the reference is the key. And the longer I paint, I longer look at the reference. And I notice things that I haven't noticed before or when I was just taking this reference. When we are first taking a reference photo, we noticed some really beautiful areas. For example, this rose got my attention because of the spots. But now most of the time I'm not even working with spots. I'm working with the background, with shadows, with contrast. And that's how we are building this realistic painting. Be sure to follow up and get all your areas painters with few more layers before moving onto the next lesson with transparent layers. 10. Transparent Layers: In this lesson, we will continue with applying transparent layers and building more and more contrast to our rows. I almost used up all gray watercolor mix, but I know which pigments I was using, so I will make, again, this watercolor makes a permanent rose, ultramarine blue and lemon yellow. Don't be afraid to run out of water color mixes. You can always mix them again. No worries. If it even slightly differ with color tone from the previous watercolor makes your painting will only benefit if there will be slight changes in color tones. In real life, subjects we see around us, they are so full of color. Even simple, green leaf has a lot of different green color tones. And especially white surface, which is reflecting everything around it, has different color tones. So experimental watercolor mixes and you will get better and better with it. Now I'm taking round synthetic brush using super light amount of this gray watercolor mix. I will apply and make my shadows even more richer. But again, I'm moving gradually. What am I doing? Well, I'm a painting with brown synthetic brush because it makes layer smoother. Previously I was painting with fine tip brush, which gave me some also texture of the special surface. Now with round synthetic brush, I'm applying smoother layer, smoothing the texture, slightly smoothing and underneath from the fine tip brush, applying another layer of watercolors. I don't want to smooth completely everything that I applied previously. But by applying smooth layers of watercolors, I'm making the previous layer sink in deeper into the surface. Here, I need more contrast, more layers because I see from the reference that this is the darkest part of this composition. More layers with fine brush stroke and round synthetic brush stroke. I'm mixing these both brushes layer after layer. Again. As you can see, my watercolors are super light. Dark, shadow area becomes dark really gradually. Don't over paint here with saturated watercolor mixes, don't rush anything. This is a really subtle painting of white rose. This area also needs a little bit more darker shadow area. And also that area is required of more contrast and darkness. Constantly checking reference, no matter how long I will paint, my eyes are running from the reference to my painting. Checking if the surface is dry and I can apply next layer using round synthetic brush and gray watercolor mix. These layers are transparent. Watercolor is a transparent medium. It allows light that is around the painting, shine through those layers and show us all the beauty of those layers. If we will paint saturated, we will block the layer that is underneath. But with each layer, this rose is becoming richer, more realistic, three-dimensional. Now let's leave a shadow area to dry completely. And I want to add some watercolor layers, two edges. I'm adding center, your red to my permanent rose watercolors. And I want to have a little bit warmth in that edge. Again, nothing is cool, completely clean. We need to add something to make it more interesting. And I want to add worm, Sennelier, red watercolor mix. You can use cadmium red, Winsor red. They are really warm red pigments added to pink pigment and you will get a warmer pink color. Again, even edge lines which we see clearly in the reference are super saturated and Rich. I'm applying them gradually. I don't want to rush things. Everything is building slowly. This rose is slowly coming to life. But only that way we can reach the really beauty of this rows. If we will rush things, we can along the way mess something up or make this rose even flat. So I'm building gradually, moving slowly just to get everything as close to the reference as possible, make it look natural and life-like. Surface of the petals are in the shadow areas are dry and we can add more contrast, more layers of gray watercolor mix. I'm adding layers only, whereas C is shadow. And don't get tempted to apply everywhere, leave light areas untouched. The greater contrast we are building in the shadow, the lighter and brighter white areas of the throws are becoming. That's the beauty of contrast when we're making something darker, even if we're not touching the lightest parts, they're instantly become brighter and lighter. So here's the key and the T are working mostly on the shadow area. Only. We will add some texture on the lightest parts. But most of the work is done and the shadow building contrast with gradual layering and transparent watercolor mixes. If you are painting transparently, you can add more layers to make shadow parts even darker. Remember to wait until all your layers are dry. Before moving onto the next lesson, where I will talk about different colour shades and reference photos 11. Different Shades in the Rose and Adding Different Color Tones: In this lesson, I will talk about different colour shades that we see in nature, my approach of seeing them, this is also one of the most asked questions from my students. I will show you one by one red rose. This one is with white spots. This rose is slightly different in form, but it's also read. This is also a red rose, different variety. But it is red. Let's check another one. This is definitely darker, but still read, write, all roses are red. And another one which is already falling apart. But all these roses read. But let's put them side-by-side. All these roses that I showed you. Maybe from this video you can't really see how different these roses are, but they all are red. But if we will place a color sample right in front of the rose. Now we can start seeing that some rows tends to go more to the yellow side. Some red rose goes to the pink side, even bluish side, wireless side. Those are cool pigments and we can clearly see that the rows is more pink, but it is still in a red color tone. This beautiful red rose is so vivid, but there are so many yellow pigment, orange pigments. If I would paint this rose, I would definitely use Sennelier read or alizarin crimson and a lot of Indian yellow, lemon yellow because it is more to the yellow side. Also, my color swatches come in handy when I need to find the color tone and also see how different these roses are. Seeing color, different color tones is. For me it helps when I'm comparing, like here, I have different red roses, but if I place them side-by-side, I noticed that one is more cooler, closer to pink, other one is warmer closer to yellow. And normal watercolor makes is that I noticed in my color swatch that are more suitable for these roles. They were yellow pigment in that mix. Try this exercise for yourself and see how many different color tones can be in one hue. Let's get back to our rows. It is pink, right? And if I place a pink circle right beside it, is it's still pink. Maybe they're more pink color tones or other color tones. Let's place a yellow circle. Do you notice some yellow color tones? I did. I noticed yellow color tone in this area because light is shining, which is sun, and creating cast shadow consisting of small amount of yellow. I added lemon yellow to my color palette and with finer tip brush, remember to paint super likely and transparently. I'm adding yellow color down in this area, only in this area because I noticed yellow color tone in that part of this composition. Now, let's add blue circle. Do you see some blue color tones in these lighter parts of rows on the petals. There are some notions of light blue taking super small amount of ultramarine blue, or maybe manganese blue. And with the final two brush, very lightly, very transparently, I apply layer to the lightest part of the petals. Again, not everywhere, only at the lightest part. And as you can see, or maybe you can't even notice how light maybe from the video don't notice the blue at all. In real life, I notice. And if it's still small enough with the next layer, I can add another layer of this blue. But again, this part should be very light, just a little notion of blue. Because the lightest parts are reflecting skies that are around this rose and they are reflecting on the lightest part of the petals. When the surface is dry, I can add another layer. And now I think you can notice some little hints of this blue color tone I'm applying and be sure that this is really light layer that you're applying. But again, you can leave this part out and leave it as it is if you are not sure that you are going to apply to super light. Don't worry, if you don't see those different color tones right away. When I was just starting, I also didn't see, I just saw a red rose, pink rose while a tulip. It all takes time and practice. The more you will explore, the more you will practice, the more you will observe, then the beauty of different color tones will start to appear. Now, moving to the next lesson, where we will build even more layers, more contrast, and make this rose come to life. 12. Deepening the Colors for Saturated and Realistic Look: This lesson is about greater contrast for more realistic look. Surface is completely dry. We can paint further. Continuing with layering and painting in the reference, notice where are the most darkest parts on the edge lines in the shadow parts. Compare one petal with another, seeing difference in tonal values with a finite toothbrush using permanent rose. I'm adding finer brush strokes like little lines on the edge part, starting from the outer edge line and moving my brush to the middle part. And those brushstrokes should be really small and fine. You can take a different piece of paper. And first practice, they're fine brushstrokes. My watercolor mixes are the same that we were using, also the same saturation, the only difference that we are adding more and more layers. And where the layers are added more and more, that particular area becomes darker. And now we can start to add spots. Again. Likely. Yes, we see the spots are dark, but even spots we need to add gradually in order to make them look lifelike and realistic. You can pause the video here and take a closer look at the spot. Do you notice that even spots have lighter part and darker part? Because Rose is roundish and spots are curving also together with the rows, making some part of the spot lighter and some darker. Now I'm applying them everywhere light. Later in the next lesson, I will apply some parts slightly darker. Adding permanent rose and Sennelier read to my color palette. As all spots are applied evenly and lightly, I add more contrast to the outer edge that we clearly see in the reference is super dark and intense. We will get there, no worries. But we are doing that gradually using finer tip brush so that my brushstrokes are super fine and thin. And I can manage with some details like edge lines. We don't want to have some brushstrokes going out of our rows. Be careful with outer edge lines. Stay in your outline of the rows inside. Applying shadow. Even the edge line is in the shadow slightly darker and then the lighter part, it is lighter. Light amount of permanent rose. And I need to paint the curved little edge line that we have in the middle. Transparently and lightly. Just this watery layer of permanent rose. Heading more spots, some spots are just a little dot. Some spots are longer, some are thicker and bigger. But notice the direction, how those spots are going. They're going to the center part of the flower. I also added a super fine darker line on the left petal because it is they're visible from the reference that there's crispy, darker edge line with the spots. It's very interesting. You don't need to completely paint 145, for example, spots that we see in the reference. The same amount in your painting. You can slightly make them a little bit lesser, or maybe even somewhere bigger or smaller. Just remember the characteristic look of these spots compared to the reference. You just don't need to completely paying the same amount, the same exact look as it is in the reference. Of course, if you want to, you can do that. But I made them slightly lesser amount. I didn't add all the little dots that I see. Maybe later I will add. But for now, I feel quite enough with this amount of spots. Still painting lightly and still constantly checking in the reference. What am I doing? How far am I in which areas I need more contrast, and which areas are completely fine? At this point. I know how tempting is to use dark watercolor mixes. I also been there. But all you can achieve with darker watercolor mixes is flat look of your subject and lose a lightest parts. Painting further, building contrast using the same watercolor makes this the same transparency of these watercolor and mixes. We are getting saturation. The layers, gradually adding layers. Be sure to keep those light areas light and work on few more layers for deepening colors. Next lesson is about all extra details that we have in our composition 13. Painting Stems and Sepals: In this lesson, you will learn that even smallest details like stems, little leaves are also important and shouldn't be left out. They are as important as the main subject in any composition. These little leaf-like areas on, in our composition are called sepals. And we will paint them with finite toothbrush using a mix of sap green, permanent green, and ultramarine blue, the tree premixed from the very beginning. In the reference, we see that the sepals are cooler in color tone, slightly different from the stem. Stem is warmer, more brighter green. And also in the sepals there are lighter and darker area. I start from the shadow, building gradually transparently with the very tip of the brush. And I apply my watercolors almost like with the stippling method, little dots here and there to make this uneven look. For the other side of the sepals, I'm using watercolor mix of Sap Green, perylene green, and Indian yellow. We also see in the reference that that part is more warmer like the stem. So the inner part of the sepals are cooler, where we have a mix of ultramarine blue in our sap green and perylene green, but the stem and the other side of the sepals are warmer. The mix of Sap Green, perylene green and Indian yellow. Adding saturated water colors with the tip of the brush to the very tips of the sepals. When we need to add just a little detail which is really dark and saturated, we can add straightaway with darker watercolor mix because that area is super small and we will definitely not be applying many layers. So little details like maybe edges or as little spikes we can add straight away with darker watercolor mix. Continuing with building inner part of the sepals slowly and gradually with little stippling method. Adding watercolor mixes gradually transparently with patients. Remember, if you feel the rush to finish things faster, just take a pause, take a break from painting completely. Come back, come back another day, or maybe take a one-hour of go for a walk, have a cup of tea, and then come back relaxed and paint further, slowly and gradually. Moving on to the next one. This sepal is much darker compared to the left one because it is going away from light source. I will be adding more shadow contrast where we can see from the reference that is darker, especially under the flower head. It is much darker. More watercolors to the shadow and we still be adding more. We see in the reference that that area is like super dark. The lower part of the sepal. There's a lot of light, but still we can see that there's some green line, the lower part. And I'm smoothing the applied, so make it gradually from darker to lighter and leaving this edge completely light. Again, these little parts are the darkest ones. And I'm going straight with a saturated and darker watercolor mixes. I have perylene green added separately to my mixing palette with the tip of the brush carefully. These sepals have so fine edge lines and we want to keep them this fine. Also in our painting, it is making it more elegant and more lifelike. If we will have a thick sepals, it can make it not so life-like as it is in the reference. Now let me tell you one thing. These little details are also important. As important as the rows. Maybe when we are looking at the composition, rows seems like a main character here. But everything is connected and everything is the same importance as the rows. You can have a perfectly painted main character, for example, like this rose. But if the stem sepals will be painted poorly than all the viewers, attention will be grabbed by poorly painted stamp or sepals. That's how our eyes are working. They tend to look at the little flaws rather than at the most bigger and beautiful piece. So if you dedicated all your energy to flower head and you don't have any more energy to paint samples and stem, take a break and come back and spend as much attention as you do for the flower head. The same amount of attention put into painting sepals and stamp. Your painting will look more realistic, more beautiful If all the details are really carefully worked through. I'm taking more of a warm green watercolor mix. And this part of the sepal is turned away from light source, is in the shadow. You see that in the reference, do you notice these changes that the left side sepal, right edge line is darker and the sepal on the ride, it's edge line is much lighter. We need to have these differences because the light source is coming from one direction and it is shining differently on each area because it is curving, it is turning. Placement is different. So that's also the shadow area is placed differently on each area. And another layer of darker watercolor makes us for those little edges that we see of the furthest sepals, we want to make even greater contrast to make them even darker. Using watercolors that I have in my color palette and nothing is changing. Just another layer. Stem painting stem is also really important in any composition. It is holding a rose. We need to pay extra attention to this part of the composition using finer tip brush, watercolor mix of Sap Green, perylene green, and Indian yellow. The upper part of the stem that I'm painting right now is completely in the shadow because rose, flower head is casting a shadow and it's hidden right underneath it, making it the darkest part on the stem. With a little brush strokes like stippling method. I'm applying the mix more saturated than usual to make it darker. Another thing about stem, if you know that you tend to go over the edges. Well, I know that I do. I draw an outline of the stem, slightly smaller, thinner than it appears in the reference. Because during process, I will make some brushstroke over the edge line. And as I will do it, I will correct it and finished with the right size of this term. If I will draw an outline as it is in the reference, I think I will finish with much thicker stem. And for the realistic watercolor painting of the flowers, It's not a good thing to have a thick stems. It all makes this painting look nuts, so lifelike. It's better even to have thinner stem, it will look more elegant. Adding perylene green to my color palette. And I need more darkness to the upper part of the stem. Just because it is so dark, the flower head is casting a shadow on the upper part of the stem. And also the right side of the stem is quite dark. So that's where I add those spine long lines of darker watercolor mix. Adding lemon yellow to my color palette. And I want to add a little bit brightness. Yellow color tone will give me that brightness and freshness to green watercolor mix. I'm comparing the sepals and stem and this tan looks much warmer, brighter. That's where yellow pigment can help us. As I painted stem, I noticed that I need more contrast on the sepal, which is the darkest one that I'm painting right now. Because when we have something finished, we can compare both areas and see which needs a little bit more darkness, more layers. Maybe it's completely okay and we can leave it as it is. I noticed that I need a little bit more contrast also on the upper part of this sepal width, fine brushstrokes. I'm adding mix of Sap Green perylene green and Indian yellow. Little brushstrokes. A little bit more contrast, correcting edges, heading these final touches until I call it done. Did you pay as much attention to the stem as you did for the rows? Then we can move to the detailing process of the rows 14. Final Details: This lesson is about detailing the rows. Now beautiful flower head is becoming more and more realistic. I'm adding permanent rose to my mixing palette. And a little bit more. I will need this permanent rose in this lesson. Taking finer tip brush. And we will add another layer to our spots. They have a nice base for these spots which is super light. Now with finer brush strokes with the very tip of the brush, I'm applying next layer, which is slightly saturated than the previous one. I'm looking in the reference and noticing how some, especially this bigger spot is structured, how it is built. Where are some corners? The major sports, I want to make them as close as possible to the reference. But the rest, I can go more freer. Also applying a little bit of Perlin violet to the darker spots which are in the shadow. Those spots are much darker. I also add here and there little dot, some extra spot. And remember, spots in the light or lighter, spots in the shadows are darker. They are also have different tonal values, not just the petal or the flower head. Even spots are darker in the shadow. Let me tell you one very important thing. What we see first in our picked subject, we almost paint the last. What does that mean? When we're picking the subjects? Something interesting catches her eyesight, like spots, folds, texture. But the most interesting part is paid at the end. All this time we were building very good background on which we will be applying details like we're doing right now. All this time. We're looking beyond those details, beyond these spots. What is behind those details? Now we have a solid background, and only now we can add those details, adding darkness to the bigger spot, some little spots as well, using Perlin violet and permanent rose. Spots in the shadow or darker. Also the direction of the spots. Notice how they are going to the center of the flower. They are not just chaotically placed. They have a structure. Need some extra darkness to this little corner. I see in the reference that there's too much darker area. Adding more darkness and more contrast using permanent rose and Perlin violet. Be careful with peril and while it, if you are using this exact pigment, it is really saturated in dark. I have diluted with water quite a lot to have more lighter amount of this pigment. But this is a nice touch to make pink color more return darker. A little bit more contrasts and shadow to the big spot. Now is the time, the time making those details more obvious. I'm also building more contrast To the areas that need more saturation and more contrast. Finalizing this rose, finalizing this painting. This is the most enjoyable part when everything is almost ready, but you can add little bit more, paint more if you were painting transparently. This is the part that you can paint on and on even after this lesson, you can continue with detailing. You see how many spots there are. You see how you can add more to this edge line, make it even more brighter with pink watercolor mix. This is the time when you can put a little bit more effort to this rose. Applying slightly darker little fold here that we see also in the reference. That corner is much darker. And I will be applying more layers to this particular area. Also, when closer to the finishing stage, I'm starting to compare one petal to another, which is darker, which is lighter, even like this. On the right, the huge petal, one area of this petal to another one, which is darker, which is lighter, where I need more layers. This petal on the left is the lightest one, but the pink part need extra layer of watercolors. With the tip of my brush. I'm adding this layer. Also, this little fold is much darker. Careful with the edge lines. We don't want to have some darker brushstroke going into the lightest petal. Adding more permanent rose. I can see that I need more pink pigment mixing together with Perlin violet and more contrast. Some brushstrokes are a little bit saturated than the previous layers. Again, I'm adding those saturated brush strokes here and there. I'm not going over the whole area of the pink edge line, then everything will look quite the same. I want to have different areas. For example, on the right, the upper part is much darker and this spot on the bottom part is also quite dark. Layer of permanent rose. Clean my brush and smooth. So I have gradual transition from the darker to the lighter. Applying little touch of permanent rose to my gray watercolor mix that I still have on my palette. And underneath this curve, I noticed that I need a little bit more of shadow area to make it more realistic and roundish because this curve is casting shadows on the petals surface underneath. And also as I'm adding those edge lines and spots even darker and saturated, or start to notice that my shadow area is becoming lighter in the contrast of that bright and pink area. Which means I need to add a little bit more watercolors to the shadow part. Permanent rose to my mixing palette. And even brighter, pink with a little touch of Perlin violet. And I'm making this edge line darker and super crisp with the fine and thin brushstroke. Practice finer brush strokes and separate piece of paper. And when you go to your painting, be sure that you are painting with the very tip of the brush. Take a closer look at the reference and you will notice how crisp this edge line is. Not always. There are dark edge lines around petals, but in this case we can clearly see that they're super thin and darker edge line. Using darker and more saturated amount of watercolors and having the finest brush and using only the tip of the brush, I'm adding this fine detail. The finer this line will be, the more lifelike an elegant into a look. I'm still looking at reference. No matter how long I paint, the reference is my guide every time. And the more I look, the more I notice some tonal values, some changes in color tones, may be some spot which I want to include in my painting as well. Thank you. More contrast, more layers and more brushstrokes. Slowly this rose becoming more and more lifelike and more and more like the reference we have here. I'm adding a little visible part of the pink edge line, but the part is curved and we have still a little, a little bit visible. Building layers, adding details, making this throws more beautiful and really enjoy this part. This is the most enjoyable part when you are making something more lifelike in your hands. And adding that extra mile, extra touch. Your painting will only benefit. And you will notice how enjoyable this is. Don't stress about the outcome, be in the process of this detail. It's like a meditation with a brush in your hand and colors in front of you. Moving on to the next lesson, be sure to spend some extra time for this detailing process. This is the most precious time when everything looks almost finished, but you can give this little extra time and effort to make it even more beautiful. Next lesson is the final one. We are finishing the rows 15. Final Painting Stage "Cleaning": In this lesson, we will finish the roast painting with final touches. And these touches are also super important to make it look more realistic and elegant. Zooming out and looking at the rows painting as a one complete. And comparing with the reference, I noticed that the stem needs a little bit of warmth. I'm taking lemon yellow together with sap green for a brighter green watercolor mix, a little bit more sap green. And with the round synthetic brush, removing excess amount of watercolors on my paper towel and smoothly applying this watercolor mix to the stamp. Be careful with outer edges, we don't want to ruin them now. Heading perylene green to my color palette. And a little bit more shadow on the upper part of the stem. I'm comparing areas, looking at the whole composition and noticing where I need more contrast, maybe shadow, maybe some extra detail. This is the part where we are making everything come. The final result. Stem needs a little bit more attention. Also with the final two brush, I'm adding some more contrast to the sepals. The further ones that are completely in the shadow area. The other one as well. A little bit more darkness here and there. And again, when you are adding some little darkness, don't add it everywhere. Really take a closer attention where you need to add it. Don't just go all the old surface and make it darker. Little bit darkness on this one to have it more contrasty, darker. I noticed that the shadow part and the flower head is not so dark anymore because everything else is painted and with the contrast, it's not so dark, round synthetic brush. I have my gray watercolor mix till on my palette. And I'm adding a little bit more transparent layer of this watercolor mix to the shadow part of the rose. I see that in the reference, the shadow part is much darker and more intense. I don't want to go that far. If you want to make it more contrasty, darker, you can definitely do it, but really careful and gradual again with layers, not just with going super dark and intense watercolor mixed straight away. Now another thing, I haven't enlarging glass and what I do, I place it over my painting and look for little floss. Like maybe in some part, a little brushstroke went over some edge. I will correct it by making it more straighter, making more crisper outer edge lines. I will not be using this magnifying glass in this lesson because then you will not see what am I doing. But I go over the edge lines, making them more neater, more accurate. This is the cleaning stage when we are correcting little mistakes. I have watercolors still on my palate with the tip of the brush going over, correcting. This is the stage where professional botanical watercolor artists are spending many, many hours. Maybe the painting is completely finished. It looks finished. But adding this extra details, extra care and attention will level up your painting. Correcting edges, making spikes more crisper. Like now, I'm making my stem more straighter. I noticed that in one part I went a little bit over the edge. And now I'm straightening up this part of the stem. I haven't my watercolor set a very intense pigment called red violet from Magellan brand. And I'm adding now it to my color palette. It is completely optional. You can use a saturated pink watercolor mix. Maybe you have this pigment. So I'm adding this pigment in few areas to make the pink edge line even more contrasty. In the shadow parts where petal is overlapping. Another petal, again, in just a little touch in few places to build greater contrast. And that's it. I'm not going everywhere with this pigment, just here and there. Little brushstrokes. This bigger spot, the lower part of the spot making it darker. And the spots that are in the shadow making them even slightly darker. Take a closer look at your work. If you need just come as close as possible to your painting. And the closer you will get, then you will notice some details that needs some adjustments like edges or maybe spots, more, greater precision, extra brushstroke, extra detail. And you're painting is now becoming more and more lifelike, more and more vivid. Don't rush this stage. Still. Do it slowly and observe the reference. Be sure to clean up all those edges, outer and inner edges. Maybe the sparrow says doesn't seem so important. But after you will pay this extra attention, you will notice the difference. And even you can take a photo before doing this cleanup session and after it. So you can see the difference 16. Conclusion: Congratulations, you made it. We just painted a beautiful rose painting. And in realistic watercolor painting, there's actually no stopping point because we can paint on announce if we follow these guidances and techniques. And also there's no stopping point in learning. We can always learn something new, new techniques, new approach. I'm constantly learning new techniques and approaches moving forward with getting better in realistic painting. Remember about careful study of the reference photos. All required information for your painting is there. The more we look, the more we start to notice. And remember there are no shortcuts and realistic watercolor painting, be patient and results will come, take little breaks, have a cup of tea, and come back with a fresh look. I hope you learned something new during this class and most importantly, enjoy the process of painting this beautiful rose with watercolors. I will be waiting for your results. Thank you very much for choosing this class. It was a real pleasure to make it and share with you my love for realistic watercolor painting. You can check my Instagram account, links are down below. You can also tag me and I will share your work in my stories. Or we can just chat. You can write me a message. Maybe you have questions about the process. I will be happy to help you and guide you. You can add the hashtag, Christine, art painting. Thank you.