How to Paint a Rose? Rose Painting Made Easy!

Painting a rose is not that difficult as it seems to be. There are a few essential pointers
you need to keep in mind before you start. All you need to start is an interest, a bit of 
patience, paper or canvas, and color supplies, of course!

Supplies
Brushes:

• Any rounded brush.
• Brush number 0 is super thin and sharp. As the number increases, the thickness 
of the brush increases.
• Choose anywhere between 5 to 8 for a rose to paint in a standard A4 sized paper. 
And a number 0 as well.


Color Palette

• You can choose water colors for subtle art or acrylic colors to make it bold and 
vibrant.
• Let’s say you want it to be a red rose. Also, you would want to use different 
shades of reds, for shadows and highlights.


Paper/Canvas


• Let’s assume we use an excellent proper pressed A4 sized paper now.

Let’s move on and get our hands working on a painting that lovely rose. It is always 
good to have a reference picture as a beginner. Example of a reference picture is below:

There are several ways to paint a rose. Below I have described a step by step process to 
make it simple to follow:

Base Layer:

Load the brush any solid color and paint a rough oval or a circle to mark the center of 
the rose. Start painting the petals with broken curved strokes around the center.
The layers of petals don’t have to be perfect circles. It looks natural as the curves of the 
rose is a bit jagged. Paint the edges of the petals to be a bit pointy.


Adding highlights and tones:

Mix red with white. Start around the center of the rose and work outwards. Paint on the petals with the new light shade. Lighten it as you work your way towards  the edges of the rose. It is like adding another layer on top of the base layer to create a  highlight and build a new perspective.

Building depth:

Mix red with dark blue or black. Load it on a thin sharp brush. Use this to highlight  spaces between layers of petals to add some shadow and depth. Let it be dark enough to  get a shadow effect but warm enough to make sure it doesn’t overplay the solid color of  the rose itself.

4. Light play:

To give the rose a real feel, take some more red, start again in the center. Make a  strongly curved stroke at the center. Keep working around the layers of petals, making a  shade of red lights as you move around the edges of the rose. This re-touch brings a  contrast to the rose, as you can see below.

Easy right? There is another way which is using an outline first and then filling the  colors as described above. There is no right or wrong way. It all boils down to whatever  is easy for you. See below for sample outlines if you like to try.

Good Luck!