Watercolour Roses-Explore Light-Filled and Loose Painting From Bud to Bloom

1. Introduction from Bud to Bloom: [MUSIC] There's something so evocative about roses that keeps drawing artists and flower lovers to wanting to explore their beauty with paint and brush. Roses symbolize so many things artistically, we will attach our own personal meaning to the roses in our life. Roses represent love, for celebration, a show of appreciation to someone in our lives. The roses are not only a gift to others, it's a gift of self-expression to ourselves in the closure of painting them. Hello there, my name is Sara Corren, and I'm a watercolor artist who unabashedly loves all things botanical. Painting roses is a beautiful escape into color and beauty. Watercolor roses explore light-filled and loose painting from bud to bloom. This is a class for the beginner and more seasoned artists. For the painter who wants to explore loose floral watercolors with soft light-load colors, we'll start by painting a simple rosebud before moving on to a rose in full bloom. Gift yourself the beautiful imagery of roses in all stages of growth. Not only will you be giving yourself the time to reflect and meditate with paint and colors of the rose, you'll have three paintings in a loose and expressive style. These techniques can be transferred to all of your floral paintings. I invite you to join me in this class. [MUSIC] 2. Your Project: [MUSIC] Let's talk about our plan. Together, we'll be painting our roses in two growth stages. Our first project will be a rosebud, where we will create a simple and elegant composition. We'll then paint our rose in full bloom, exploring ways of adding leaves and simplifying foliage. We'll quickly explore composition and color thumbnails to provide a roadmap to help us out in creating our final project. In our final painting, we'll incorporate everything we've explored previously in creating softly painted atmospheric roses with both bloom and bud. I can't wait to get started painting. Let's go through the materials we need in the next lesson. [MUSIC] 3. Bud to Bloom Materials: Before we get started, let's go over some of the materials that we'll be using to paint out beautiful roses. The brushes I'll be using are a variety I'll be using the mop brush, some natural head rounds, a synthetic mix angled brush and a smaller synthetic angled brush. The reason why I like synthetics is for the details at the very end of the watercolor passes. They hold less water, which gives you more control. Whereas I think in the initial stages having a natural head brush you can load up a lot of paint and pigment, though I love the effects. Also, I would recommend using a rigger brush just to get into those lighter details. I will be using a Derwent sketching light wash pencil, this one is water-soluble and it's terrific because you can get an idea of what you're drawing, map it down, but you're not committed to the line. So once it washes out, then you have the luxury of adding or subtracting where you need to. Two pots of water, one to keep clean, one to wash your brush. A spray bottle is always really handy to either reconstitute your paints or perhaps add a nice effect with the backgrounds. I'm using the Hahnemuhle paper, it has a nice cold press tooth and it is a cotton paper. I would recommend using a 100 percent cotton paper in the paper of your choice. There are a lot of lovely brands out there like Fabriano or Saunders Waterford. Again, it's always nice to explore paper towel to capture residual water. In the resource section, I have a list of the varying colors that we'll be using. As you can see from this little box, I don't have a particular mainstay of watercolor brands. One of the delights of watercolor is exploring new colors, so rather than being loyal to one brand I really do like to experiment, find out their unique properties. One of the nice things about being a watercolor artist is that you get to collect paints. I find I'm not particularly brand loyal, there are a lot of wonderful artist quality manufacturers. So what I like to do is just explore each has their unique properties which are characteristic to them and it's really nice to find out new colors and inject a little bit of play and exploration into your paintings. Looking at this particular rose, I can already see in here there's some lovely pink which could be quinacridone pink or permanent rose. Another one is a holbein shell pink which is fairly close match and I can see a little bit of Naples yellow in the base of the rose bud. Again, it really is exploring and then you get to a point where you stop imagining your own colors or exaggerating the times that you see. Now that we've gone over our materials, let's get to the next lesson. 4. Choosing Your Colours: I have a whole range of different paints, from bright ones to more muted ones. In here we have permanent rose. Here is a lovely bright almost fluorescent pink to try out. Sap green, which we'll put on the opposite end. Translucent orange is really lovely for an underglow, as well as some [NOISE] quinacridone gold. In this way, I can have a look at my colors and I have a little play and just reflect on what colors I would like to use for my oncoming paintings. This is also a wonderful way to warm up and get into the flow of painting. As you can see in front of me, I've designed a rose swatch sheet, which you can find in the resource section. It makes me very happy to look at this. Honestly, it's a great way to warm up or if you fill a little blocked, there's nothing more soothing and meditative than swatching out your favorite colors. Looking at the rows I have in front of me, I can see little suggestions of green, Naple yellow, different assorted pinks. But rather than jumping straight into a painting and perhaps making a mess, I can warm up and get in design by just experimenting. Here, I'm looking at this particular rose. I'm going to show you the difference of what happens when you do a nice underpainting compared to just one flat color. Here, I have some lovely bright rose you could use an opera pink. I'm taking a little bit of transparent yellow, just dropping it in the centers. Then I'm just going to leave this particular swatch. All one color. Maybe I'll come back in with the same color but a bit deeper. Looking at the rose leaves, again, when you look at nature, it's not one set green. This one is quite pale. It seems to have almost a bluish tinge underneath it whereas different sections of the leaf are a lot warmer. I'm going to experiment. Just have quite bold, transparent yellow underneath this one. I have a beautiful gold, quin gold. It's a lovely autumn color going in here. Just dropping in a little bit of violet because the violet will mute that color. To give it a more natural effect. This one, dropping a little bit of translucent orange, which is a gorgeous color for adding luminosity and feel. I'm looking at this one I think, white roses are difficult. How will I do a shadow for that? Is just such a lovely way to play, unwind. Put some music on with no pressure, and also find some really lovely combinations. I encourage you to share these sheets with me in the project gallery because I would love to see any color combinations that you have or discover. Another thing I'm just thinking, well, I'm doing this. What I could potentially do is just come in later when it's dry and just make little notations of what I like. For example, I think, oh, I love the way that the opera rose, the bright rose blends in with the beautiful pink. Now that this is dry, I'm having a look at some of the color combinations that we've created. I loved this rich gold as an underpainting for the leaves. I'm remembering that the center of the rose is always a bit darker. Here, I've added a deep red color. I'm imagining that perhaps the light is coming from this way. The underneath ones are capturing in shadow. I quite like that combination of light against dark, the core pink against the deeper red. Let's move on to this one. We didn't do a underpainting, we're just pretending that we are just using the one color only. We'll drop that in and we'll go back with the original rose and do the same thing inventing shadows. Isn't that lovely? Just that little watermark there. It looks like it was intentional, but it wasn't that I love it because it gives you that feel of the light heating it. It's a social surprises that are really lovely. Now we've gone in darker with the permanent rose I'm using that one color. Another nice thing is, if you remember that of course roses are surrounded by green. We could just come in very lightly and just dropping a little bit of green. The leaves would be reflecting color back on. That's really nice. I invite you to have a play and create your own rose swatch sheet. I think this definitely is a very relaxing way to start, and I look forward to seeing your color play. Now for the next lesson, we are going to look at the shapes of the Roses. See you then. 5. Understanding the Shape of the Rose: Before we get started on painting the rose, let's look at the shape of the rose that is unique to this species. Rose petals can be pointed or they can be round. But one thing that is distinct to the rose is that teacup shape that they all have. If we are looking at painting a rose, try, and think of it essentially as a teacup with a wine glass shape popped in the center. We find the center of the rose, we'll have that to ground us. Once we have that very rough shape in line, then we can start thinking about the petals unfurling, depending on what stage of growth in life the rose is. Again, looking at the center that is much darker, and you can see these little half-crescent moon shapes that are easy to depict. Then these little sepals come out. Roses have about five of these, which sometimes you see, sometimes you don't. Again, looking at the teacup shape, if the rose was pointing away from us, we'd very lightly map that out. We wouldn't see the wine glass because it will be turned away from us. The base of the flower, in the center, these little sepals climbing up the top of the rose, and we could start adding the detail of the petals wrapping around until it gets to that shape. Now we can see. It's a very basic but helpful way of seeing roses, and not getting lost when you're painting them either outside or if you have a beautiful bouquet in front of you. It's a good way of just mapping it. I guess the eye sees things, and makes immediate connections. Even though you may not be doing a particularly realistic rose, even these very stylized ones, you have a sense that it's the rose shape. Another thing roses commonly have are the three leaflets like this, just directly under the flower. As you begin to travel down the lane, the leaflets may turn into three or five down most of the center of the cane. If you're drawing from your imagination, this is a good thing to remember as well. Another thing to remember is the leaves tend to have an oval or a diamond shape that is distinctive to them. Some of them have these different colored little edges, others not, it just depends on the species. For our next lesson, we are going to create a rose badge, and look at painting the flower top. Let's go, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Creating a Rosebud: For this lesson, we are going to focus on the head of the rose. I've lightly sketched it in with the water-soluble graphite just to give me a map. I can see that they're lovely to me; Naples yellow color. Looking at it, I'm going to use my brush just very lightly. Draw it in. This will give me a sense of where to go, and also it provides a nice base for the lovely pinks that are going to go on top [NOISE]. I've chosen to use the bright rose color because it's really nice to see [NOISE] that beautiful feel. I know this because of the swatch cards that we've used before, and looking at it and referring to it. Those were the colors that I could decide on. Looking at my rose swatch card, I really love that yellow combination with the bright rose. Then coming in with a more muted $ pink. I thought that was quite effective, and much more interesting than just the permanent rose that we see here before. Once it was dry, as you can see, I've come in and made little annotations about what colors that I've used in case I would like to use this for future reference [NOISE]. This is still very wet, which is a lovely way to start. I'm going to get a clean, damp brush and just lightly bleed out some of these edges so I can have a more naturalistic look. I'm going to wait five minutes for that to dry, and then come back in with the second pass. Getting a smaller brush, I'm now going to get some of the permanent rose. Maybe mix it in with a little bit of gold just to warm it up a bit as if the sun were touching it. Just to give a little bit of freshness. Back into the rose looking at this center part and just saying how it's deeper. It's nice to be able to paint in some warm shadows, as opposed to around the edges where the sky might reflect. Some blue on the edges or green, depending if it was surrounded by a lot of foliage. Just dropping some pink in there to show the fold of the leaf. I'm not going to go too dark because I'm probably going to go over some areas in green where the sequels are. I think the beauty of watercolor is keeping that translucency. I won't come in and do everything all at once because I might not need the detail. Here the bud is starting to open. Again, just softening the edges. It gives that sense of movement, maybe it's swaying in the wind. Certainly the leaves don't like being under these studio lights. I have to give it a little bit of a spritz, a little bit of pink, a little bit of lavender to show the shadow area. Again, keeping it very simple. While that's drying, I'll go to our next lesson where we begin to connect the stalk. 7. Connecting the Stalk to the Bud: Now we're going to connect the stalk to the head of the rows. It's still slightly wet. What I would like to do is just bring out and down some of the maples color to connect the flower and keep it all in the color family. I'll bring that maples yellow all the way down following these wonderful curves bringing it out there. Dropping in some maples yellow for leaf and then perhaps a larger one around here. This is not a botanical study. It's more whimsical, a little more playful, more expressive. I'm just allowing myself the freedom to invent leaves, takeaway leaves. Just dropping in a little bit of gold underneath here to give some richness. At this stage using different yellows, it just gives it a different field. I might come in as well and this area here is the underside. Just make it blue because it seems a bit cooler. It's still mixing in. Now I'm also getting some deeper gold brown and popping it in just to add some richness. Going in and getting a little bit of the blue, ultramarine blue, this is. I'll just mix it with the gold brown. Add a little bit more of sienna. Make my own daily screen to offset the clean colors of the pink. Honestly, I have an idea of what I'm going to do with these lessons, but I find the painting tends to dictate what it needs. For example, these beautiful watermarks and the way it begins to dry, the water travels, and I think you couldn't repeat the same one in a row. Now, this is very wet down there, so I love the way the colors are blending in here. What I'll do now is go and as this is quite dry, come in and start to draw these little sepals. This is blending quite nicely because I've kept that area still very light so it gives me a little bit of wiggle room. This brush is lovely. It has a beautiful point which definitely helps when it comes to making these little jagged edges against the back of the leaf. Now looking at that, I think I might need some variety. What I'll do now is get some of that dirty green, rub it off, just have a practice and dry brush just down here and there to give some different line effects. Sometimes it's easy with a synthetic brush actually because as I said, it carries less water. That's too good of a brush. It's got too much paint in it. That's better. It's nice to have these thick lush strikes contrasting against the dry brushwork. Now I think that's a beautiful start. I'm going to let that dry and come back with a second pass on the leaves. Now, looking at this, we can see some beautiful effects of the colors blending in together, the softness that is truly unique to watercolor and what makes it challenging and energizing at the same time. You really do learn a lot about your personality and how much you need to relinquish control over areas. Now, I'm going to start on the sepals from the top to the bottom, varying the colors as we go. The important thing I think is not to make it boring. You can use the same colors, but by putting in different amounts and dropping in different areas of the Naples yellow, the green, the blue. You get a lot of visual interest. I think there's something just very universal about artists wanting to paint roses. They're so beautiful and very relaxing to paint. I think it's such a meditative thing to do. I find painting flowers and painting roses is such a comforting thing. When life gets a little bit too much, there really is something special about being able to put some time aside and just look at colors, at forms if you're lucky. The roses have a beautiful scent. I know my mom was telling me that some roses are being bred without any scent. It's mainly the traditional garden flowers or garden roses that do have that. Why that is the case I do not know. There is nothing more satisfying than coming into a house and seeing a bouquet of garden roses and having that beautiful aroma. Now I'm going over the stalk of the stem. If you look, it's not a straight line. It has a curve here, a curve on the other side. That's important to keep in. We create that variety by using either a dry brush technique, dropping in different values of green where we see it, or that's in the shadow area or even a touch of the gold to warm things up. Looking here, using that Goldie orange as under painting. I'm just going to move to a bigger brush so that I fuss around. It just gives that beautiful and the glow. You see that when you're looking at flowers in nature, how the sun will hit it and become transparent and it's lovely to look at. I like that very soft apricot fill. Even though this leaf is technically green, I'm just going to leave it that apricot color because it's pretty and it also ties in with that drop of orange. I think if you have the structure of the leaves, well, then you can be a little creative and use your imagination. Here, I'm inventing the leaf of falling over. This leaf is looking a little sad at the moment, but if it was feeling upright and perky, it'd probably be curving over without my help. I'm doing the underside of it blue here. Then this way, I'm just doing a little bit of negative edge painting. I keep that sunlight feeling and just paint away from the leaf. I'm coming with a smaller brush. You can get into the zone quite quickly. Now, I'm looking at this shaft here and I'm picking up some blue and just exaggerating the shadow color to give it some form. These little edges are colored. Again, because we're just doing an expressive, loose gestural rows, I'm not going to go around and do it to every single one. Before we go on any further, I'm going to let this dry and come back and finish off doing the details of the rosebud and make sure we connect it all. 8. Simple Details to add Definition: For the final stages of the rose bud, I'm using an angled brush. This is because I want more defined lines that emulate what's happening in the actual center of the rose itself. Also synthetics tend to hold less water, so there's more control which I do like at the very end. It's nice to be loose and expressive. But then I think it's important just to have a little bit of detail and some hotter edges to define the rows and offer some visual contrast. I'm going back into the rose color. The bright rose color, and just making some little touches here and there. The nipple yellow, and the bright rose makes a nice Daud pink. Almost a vintage pink color, which is attractive and also gives that sense of being more natural and muted. As you can see, the angle brush is good. I've only recently started using it in the last couple of years because it really emulates the leaf and flower shape, as you can see, and it gives a different feel to just a round brush. But it's definitely has that feel of petals and I really like it. I'm going to imagine the light source is coming from the top right, so I need to bring very pow wash of color to give it form. There's a little bit of lavender there, which is nice and clean. Lavender is a really attractive shadow color to use, particularly on yellow. Because you don't want to use a dirty brown for a rose for shadow color. Well, not on this particular one. Never say never. I'm just adding these tiny little details, hard lines, not much color, and already it's beginning to give a lot more definition. I like this soft edges and the suggestion, so I actually think I'll leave that and not do anymore. I think with a watercolor like this, which is more atmospheric loose gestural, laces definitely more, and I think it's better to suggest the rows as opposed to overworking it. Unfortunately, I don't know about you, but definitely with me if I'm enjoying myself, I'm having a good time. I'm getting lost in the process. It is so easy to keep going and overwork, and then you've lost that wonderful charm of a loose watercolor. I love that way that it has those soft edges there. It just gives that sense of movement. I'm now going into the leaves, making some areas stronger by using that combination of gold, Sap green and a little bit of translucent orange which are the same colors that I used in the under wash except a little bit stronger just to bring out some of the stem shape. This is just a loose study. There really isn't a lot more that needs to be done. I'm really happy with the way that this has turned out. It's loose and gestural. You have the feel of the rose bud. The last thing I'd like to do in this row study is to recreate that lovely apricot color, which is the conecran gold. A little bit of permanent rose, and nipples yellow. I'm going to just lightly repeat it and bring it in there. But it just brings it in a little bit more. Here we go. That's nice. It has a nice s-shaped curve, a little bit of rhythm, and I'll just add some splatters at the end, and I would say we're done time for our next lesson. 9. From Bud to Bloom: We filmed the Rose Bud and now, we are going to look at painting the rose at the peak of its beauty when it's in full bloom. Now, I've lightly sketched the rose in the water-soluble graphite pencil, and I'm taking a mixture of Naples yellow very softly and just lightly putting in an under wash of the petals of the rose. When drawing the rose, I think try and look at the irregular edges that you do see in nature. It gives it a little more credibility in the natural way that it looks and also I think there is something just really beautiful about the randomness of line that you get. If it's too round, it tends to look a little uniform, and sometimes, especially if you're creating delicate colors, which we will be with the pink rose. It can look like a powder puff, so it's nice. I think just to have some variation. The rose that I'm doing [NOISE] is arise that I took a photo of when I went to the Adelaide Botanical Gardens and [NOISE] it was done around the time of spring so there was lots of beautiful subjects for me to sketch, take photos of, and what I've done is I've created some downloads in the resource gallery so either you can paint along with me, or if you have a rose that you can draw from life even better. Now at the center of the rose, I'm just going to drop in some light translucent orange and [NOISE] as you can see at this stage, everything is bleeding together. Now I'm going to go in with translucent yellow, and just. This is probably one of my favorite stages of just dropping in the colors, letting them merge together. Some people are scared of the white page. I actually loved the white page. The beginning stages of what's going to happen is one of my favorites. It's probably around the middle to the end. That's when I get nervous. But this is lovely because you have the translucency of the paper showing through, and it just gives a really beautiful effect. Now I'm going around with a damp mop brush and just lightly bleeding out some of these edges because I don't want it to look like a cookie cutter illustration. I just want some of that colors to blend out. As you can see, this area is very delicate. We have that blush of warm in the middle and then the very pale pink along the edges. I'm going to now use some bright rose or operate pink or permanent rose depending on what you have in your repertoire. Now first of all, I'm just going lightly over with a clean, damp water because the layer underneath is dry. Nothing will get muddy or mixed up, and then I'm just going to lightly just to. I'm going to come in now and just make some really gentle deviations with the petals. I'm using a smaller brush, and then my thicker brush just to bleed it out. Again, I would only do this in the shadow areas, and that's because I don't want to travel around every individual leaf as if we're coloring it in. Look at your reference photo and just pick out a few areas, focusing on the colors, on the beauty of the flower. It really is a transformative way to spend a painting session and if I'm feeling a bit low. If I'm feeling pretty positive, it's still brings the same result. Just that sense of peace when you drop in some color, listen to the noise at the brush makes in the water. It really is a beautiful experience. I do prefer to paint from life and I feel that personally I get better effects. But the more that you paint from life, the more confidence it begins to give you when you paint from photos. When we're looking at shadows on the petals, try and think it's probably the darkest value is really going to be no more than 20 or 30 percent of the actual flower. I think that's important to remember because it's easy to put too much color on, and then you lose that beautiful light coming through from the white of the paper. We starting to see some form, and now, I think I will go into the center of the rose on and picking some transparent orange, and just a Dutch of sap green to neutralize it [NOISE] and just slowly coming around and just drawing it in. This doesn't have to be perfect. It's just gestural. As long as you think where is the sun coming? Let's pretend the sun is coming from the top so the shadow will be going this way. When painting atmospheric roses, I think what's important is just to make suggestion rather than overkill. With this particular rose, what I'm looking at, is that beautiful delicacy of the pink petals and the Aeneid detail that are really be doing is at the center and that will be the focal point. But again, I don't want these little stems here to dominate so I'm keeping the colors pale and just again, varying the tone, varying the value, and already I'm feeling pretty happy with the way it's going. I'm really happy with the soft subtleties of the pinks and the yellows and rather than going in and adding more paint and potentially overworking it. Let's go to the next lesson where we'll talk about adding foliage. 10. Adding Foliage: Sometimes a rose bloom looks beautiful just independently. It can be really tricky adding in leaves. This is one that I've done earlier. I was just experimenting and I really have kept the leaves to suggestion. I wanted to keep it light. In these colors I've just used viridian green, a little bit of transparent yellow with some orange to neutralize it. It's very suggestive, it's very atmospheric. I don't think it needs a lot of detail or leaves. It really is a personal choice. How much detail you want to bring in. But I think if you want to keep that sense of lightness, less is always more. Here I just have a selection of leaves for my own reference from my old rose garden. As you can see, I've taken photos where I love the decay of the leaves. Namely because it has interesting colors like these beautiful golds and browns. I'm thinking with this one, I might go in a little darker just because I've showed you the other version. But if I look at this, it would be a nice composition if I traveled down with just the 3,4 leaves and kept it quite simple. I'm to mix up some viridian with a little bit of the brown. I have some of that lovely gold cadmium. What I'll do first is get a clean damp wash, like so. I'm doing this so the water will travel. With a natural hair brush, I'm going to just lightly drop in some color because this paper is quite thick and absorbent. It's not moving around like a smoother surface would. Drop in some cad yellow maybe at the top to emulate some sunshine and also to replicate and continue that color harmony that we see in the front. Depending on your own personal style, you might look at this and think, I don't want to do much more, and I don't want to add leaves, and that would be a fair call as well. If I take that permanent rose and then add some of that green, I think that's quite lovely as well. The thing with watercolor is that if you trust it, the paper, the water will do your work for you. But the thing is, it is an exercise, it is a discipline in itself just learning to trust your own instincts about what looks good. I'm looking at the way the water is traveling, the way the paint is dispersing, and honestly I think I could almost leave it like that. Now what I'm doing is very gently with clean dump water, I'm pulling the green up into the petal. It gives that feel of curving around. Also in real life, that green would be reflecting in the petal area very softly. Again, it makes the whole painting cohesive because you're bringing that around. Because I've introduced this lovely olive green color, I'm just going to add a little touch of it back in at the center of the rose to harmonize all of it. If you keep a limited palette and repeat your colors in all areas of your painting or study, it just gives your work a cohesive look. Now if you're at this stage, you might look at it and think, I'm happy with just having a gentle and delicate composition, I'll leave it. Honestly, I would be tempted to do that because I like it the way it is. But in this case, I'm just going to bring out some very simple leaves and then I think we'll call it done. I'll let this dry and we'll come back. If you are working from life, use the actual plant to help you make compositional decisions. Sometimes what I like to do is just play around with shapes and just see what works, what doesn't. Nothing can give you better inspiration than actual nature itself. I like the randomness of this. I'll pull this out. Now I'm getting my rigger brush and putting it in my dirty water and bringing this down. Just making some random stalks. Then I'll come in and just drop some color in here and there. Because again, I don't want one hash line. Then grabbing my round with a natural hair. I'm getting a random mix. A lot that went up there. This is a beautiful gold color, which is quinacridone gold. Is just basically dirty from my brush. Again, we're having that lovely sun-kissed look of the leaf. I like this random arrangement. I'm going to blend this out and then continue with that. Just pulling that here. These leaves, I guess you'd call them a mud color. It's a mixture of all these colors that we've used together. I'll drop in some more of the yellow here. It's really important just to play, not get locked into things and listen to what your painting needs. The colors that I've used are really soft. I don't want to come in with anything really hard. If you are painting a rose, like a deep red rose, perhaps the work would call for dark leaves, or perhaps you'd like to work with that contrast of dark against light. That's really effective too. Again, it's drawing really nicely. I will let it dry and just come in and just do a few details. Looking at this, I really like this area, the way that the watercolor paint is just traveling off into the light. This is a nice shape to work with. Then we have that olive. What I will do is just bring leaf shapes. Get a smaller brush. [NOISE] Bring this around. Neutralizing it with the orange and just play and invent. Using the base that we already have, I'm coming in and just going over the top of this. Looking at these, I'd like to strengthen them. We have that warm olive underpainting. Leaves tend to be angular or oval-shaped with roses. If you keep within that shape and then invent some colors just to make your compositions more interesting, it will still be believable. Now, I'm repeating this beautiful gold color up here. Again, keeping it very simple because this is quite a strong shape at the top. I'm adding extra visual white by making some of these colors a bit darker. This is really lovely. It's simple, but there's a lot of color diversity. Now, I'm looking at this, rather than having a stalk connected. What I will use is a tone. Come in with wet motor. This is a nice [inaudible] area. I'm using the viridian, which is quite a core green. I'm neutralizing it with the orange and the brown and along the edges, I'm just lightly dropping it in. Just to bring these leaves. I'm bringing through tone these leaves and connecting them. This beautiful rose from the Adelaide botanical gardens I have put down in the resource section. I hope you will follow me and create your own design. Basically the points to remember is, keep it simple. Use a lot of water. These wonderful pinks and yellows of the rose petal, will work the less that you do. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you create. Let's go to our next lesson where we're going to create an elegant design with the balloon and the bad. 11. Looking at Composition: When thinking about composing a piece, it doesn't have to be overly complicated. We're basically using circles, ovals, and angle shapes, which are the leaves and the blooms. In this one, I'm just imagining that I might have one bloom shape. Press the stems will crossover with these two little blooms. Maybe I want to give one rose more dominance. For example, it could be a rose bud. Then I think lots of rose buds around it, does that work? Not sure. I would go into the next. Perhaps I would like to have a big bloom in the bottom and have that be my dominant one with some leaves coming out. To wipe that up, maybe a brightly colored or deep red rose bud up here. Join them. It really is just abstract shapes which we will be giving more detail to. Even if you invest five or 10 minutes in during this exercise, it really helps you from getting lost. I've just got some markers in different grades or dark colors. Now I'm thinking, I know that we'll be the painting an apricot colored bloom. Do I want to add the top or the center? Do I want a dark bud with it crossing over? It just depends. At this stage, we're just pattern-making until we find a pattern that suits our visual sensibility. In the next lesson, we're going to go over color thumbnails once we have decided which particular composition we're leaning towards. Be sure to share some of your little scribbles in the project gallery and tell me what you think. See you in the next lesson. 12. Explore Colour Thumbnails: Before we get started on creating our final piece, let's look at some color thumbnails and how they help provide a foundation for you to create your piece of artwork. This process takes about five or 10 minutes, but I find it invaluable in helping me give some direction about where I want to go. For our final bloom and bug piece I've opted for the bug to be on the top traveling down towards the full-bloom. This one has a plain white background. I'm very partial to this because I think this composition is very simple but very elegant. Here I was playing around with the idea of being bright and bold. Which is really not my personality, which is probably why I don't feel comfortable or am gravitating towards drawing it, even though I do like color, it doesn't feel like me. But again, I haven't invested a whole afternoon or day in painting this. I can just say that as much as I love blues and greens, against that, it doesn't reflect on what I'm feeling at this present moment. Here I've introduced some cobalt blue. It's very soft, it's very delicate and fresh and clean. I actually think that this is the one that I'm going to elect to do. Another one that I was partial to, was to repaint the pinks and purples of the flowers and just blade them out in the vignette style as well. That's a really nice way of creating harmony in your piece. It perhaps isn't as eye-catching as something with a more bold contrast, but I do like that soft, delicate feel. I think it could be nice for you if you did it in the neutral purples and grays. I think that could look really effective against the deep brows and the warm orange. So again, all is not lost. Perhaps one day I'll revisit these different ones. But for the purposes of this exercise, I think I'll go with this one. Explore this way of working. I think it's good to have a process to help keep you from getting lost. Even though you still have the ability to change your mind during the painting and listen to what the painting needs, it's a great way of grounding yourself. I'd love to see your versions in the project gallery. For our next lesson, let's go towards creating our final piece. 13. Designing with Bud and Bloom: Well, here we are, we're at our final stage where we're going to put everything that we've learned together and create our bloom. I'll be getting my angled brush and some bright rose with the shell pink and just create the silhouette. This particular rose is a wonderful garden rose from mild backyard. I do remember it just had the most incredible scent which for some reason it seems like in florists, they seem to be getting rid of that perfume and I'm not quite sure why. But I think what's important is really just to think about the silhouette of the rose rather than the details of what is inside. It can be a little overwhelming. When you have rose petals and there are so many of them that it's easy to become a little bit visually lost. Now I'm going to come in with some of that deeper and maybe warm it up with a little bit of the orange. There's just something very poetic about the nature of these roses. We want to connect to them on a more personal level rather than the clinical level. Now I'm getting some more of that deep rose and I'm looking at the shadow areas. Now let's imagine the sun is coming from the top-left. What I'm doing is shading that teacup shape that we looked at before to give that sense of form. The sun's hitting here and we're wrapping our strokes, our darker shadow strokes around in order to give that dimension. Next, I'm getting some lavender color and it's almost neat at this stage because the paper is beginning to dry, which does give a little bit of texture that I think I will stop, let it dry, and then move on to our rose bud. Using my spray bottle, I'm just going to lightly spray because I want some soft wish and wet techniques. This time I'm going to start off with naples yellow and lightly mold the rose bud. I've woken up pretty early this morning. The house is quiet. I have two dogs who do like to get involved and are quite noisy. Two little Maltese Shih Tzu who those artists have studio companions, like dogs or cats. They are wonderful to have for company but not so good when you're trying to film they're very inquisitive and definitely with what's happening outside. They like to bark a lot. With this soft rose bud, what I'm doing now, is on the very tip, I'm going to get a little bit of the sap green. I'm not cleaning my brush because I want those colors to merge in together. I'm just going to put a little bit on the base of our little rose bud or our cup shape. It has that sense of sitting within the sepals. Now I'm drawing that out with some dry brush. It's nice to have a contrast between soft strokes of the brush stroke and then some dry brush ones just to add visual interest. We don't want our painting to be so soft that it looks like we're looking at an underwater. It's nice to have some sharp edges here and there. Now I think I might move in around here and put in a background rose. This background rose, if you look at the resource photo, it is in the background. But we're not going to put it in full focus because it's just going to be a supporting player in our painting. I'm mixing up some very dull pink, a mixture of the shell pink, the whole bond shell pink, which is lovely, and also lavender. The shell pink is a beautiful convenience color. If you don't have it, you can mix your own just by getting a favorite pink and adding an opaque gouache. As much as I try and have a limited palette, sometimes it's nice just to have those convenience colors which you can go to. I'm keeping it very pale because I want this flower to be dropped into the leaves later on. I think that's a pretty good start. I'm going to let these dry and then we'll move on to the leaves. Remember when we were working with our color thumbnails, I decided it'd be nice to work with cobalt teal. I think that's a beautiful foil against these pinks and apricot colors. I'm mixing very light cobalt teal and a little bit of quinacridone gold. I'm just going to invent some leaves as we traveled down. I'm using pale yellows and blues as an under wash for the leaves because I'm just mapping in the placement. Also I want that beautiful under painting to show through when we come back in and put more detail on the leaves. Even though I've lightly met my composition with pencil, I'm not adhering to the lines. I'm just following my own whimsy, using it as a guide only because I don't know about you, but sometimes I paint and then you see different things or something magical happens with the painting, and you decided that you want to change direction a little bit. But so long as you have the nuts and bolts of it should be safe. I'm dampening this area here just so I can drop in some colors so we can have some background leaves that are more diffused. What I'm doing now is keeping the value range quite soft. Even though I'm changing between gold and cobalt teal. It all pretty much is the same value, so it all mixes together. There's something very meditative about having silence in the house and being the only one up or if you're a night owl, being able to paint just with peace. I think the very character of roses conjure up different things for different people that I think quite a poetic flower. It's nice to keep that sense of beauty and lightness when we're painting, especially with these soft pink apricot roses. Now this is a really nice start. What I'm going to do is let it dry off, and that's really important, and then I'm going to come back in. I'm really happy with the way that this has going. It's soft and suggestive. What I need to do now is just put a little bit of detail into the leaves. I'll put some music on and you can watch me as I just pulled out a few leaves before we go in and add the detail to our bloom and bud [MUSIC]. Now we're at that stage where I think we're almost done. If we put too much in, I think we are in the danger of overworking it. At this stage, I would let things dry and make a cup of tea or coffee and then come back and look at it in fresh eyes. This lovely looseness and blending of the washes and leaves is nice. I wouldn't want to interfere with it. I just think we just need to perhaps make some of the inner petals stronger, perhaps a tiny little bit of form there. What I've done with the leaves is I've very rudimentary got my brush, added in some veins, some edges. When you're drawing the leaves, just remember they're just oval shapes or triangular shapes. So long as you have the tone of the leaf in the same value family, you can play around and they don't have to be super neat. In fact, the brushwork is what will make the leaves interesting. I'm just going to accentuate the shadows. If we think of the light coming from the top-left, this will be lighter. But if we recall back to our earlier lesson where we're thinking of this shape, being a teacup with a wine glass. That central container will have the shadow against it, so that will be darker there. These shadows, this synthetic angled brush is great because it replicates the angular nature of the petals and it's good to use a smaller brush at the very end of the lesson or the stage of the painting. Because the smaller the brush, the more control you have. Just with the light green and cobalt, I'm coming in just to draw that out. Using my mop brush to bleed it out. It's bleeding over that particular rows in the background, which knocks it down even more. This is nice the way that it's all blending together. I'll leave that and using my angled brush, just doing some negative painting here and there. At this stage, sometimes it's good to even leave your painting to the next day or work on another one. Because I think people are scared of the white page. I think this is the danger zone at the very end when you attempted to put on too much detail and inadvertently overwork your painting because we want to keep this a nice, fresh sturdy. When drawing leaves or putting in a bit of detail, try and remember the central vein of the leaf. That will help you proportionally when the leaves start to curl over or move away from you. Let's move on to our rose bud at the top. I like this soft, muted pinks and apricot, so this doesn't really need much. I think it's nice to keep some soft edges bleeding out. I really think if I just add some dry brush to add some texture. We're at the stage where the painting is still very soft and atmospheric, yet it still tells a story of garden roses in the sunshine. What I would do now is just pull out a few highlights in the rows. But I will do that with white gouache. I just like to use white gouache neat and dry brush it over petals that would be hitting the sun and I think the white gouache makes a nice fall against the transparency. On the top of the rose, I'm doing some light gestural marks where the sun would be heating. You want these marks just to be quite calligraphic and very gestural. We've now come to the end of our final project. Let's go into the conclusion where we'll wrap up on what we've learned. 14. Wrapping Up Roses: [MUSIC] Hello again. We're now at the end of our class, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I love creating it. With this way of painting, like its original source, no two rose paintings will be the same. Your personal brushwork and painting identity will shine through. I would love to see your creations in the project gallery below, where you can also find access to the materials list and photo references. Please let me know whether you would like me to create some more classes of roses in the review section. I would really love to hear your feedback. It would mean a lot to me. I'll see you in the project section. Take care and happy painting. [MUSIC].