Exercise R2: Drawing Roses

Hello, Artists!

Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but flowers are timeless and can be for any occasion - and that applies to art too!

Roses are some of my favorite flowers to draw, because they are delicate and complicated at the same time. There are also many ways and styles to draw them, which make them a very versatile subject matter.

In my opinion, the best way to start drawing flowers is to use references. Here is a lovely small blooming rose that I found with a simple Google search.

Drawing from real life is the best kind of practice, because it forces you to learn the ‘geography’ of the flower, one detail at a time. After drawing enough roses, you’ll start to understand how they work, and how they bloom, and eventually you’ll be able to draw them without a reference.

I’ve seen many types of interpretations of roses. When I was a kid, I actually drew rose buds like this:

Silly, right? But after studying roses (as I got older), I noticed that, even though it was very simple and abstract, the basic shape of the common rose was still there: the petals bloom in a swirl, from the center. The youngest petals are in the center, and the petals become larger and bloom farther and wider as they reach the outside of the rose.

While keeping this concept in mind, let’s take a look at a step-by-step on how I draw roses.

Since a rose starts from the center, I also begin drawing from the center. I draw a few small and tightly-wrapped petals in the enter - they are enveloped by larger petals, but are still closed in.

Step 2: I draw the next “layer” of petals. These petals are larger, and are big enough to start folding outwards, compared to the ones in the center.

Step 3: In this step, I round out the shape of the entire rose, by adding the last “layer” of petals to the top. I vary the shape and size of the petals to keep it interesting- you don’t want to have the same size petals all the time, or all of your roses will look the same, and less dynamic.

Step 4. Here is my completed rose. Follow the arrows on the right: notice how the inner layers wrap upward, but as the petals near the outside, they start to splay and fold outwards. This is the natural way that roses bloom. If you compare a rose bud to a rose that is already in full bloom and starting to lose its petals, you can probably imagine the progression in between.

Drawing rose buds are like drawing full roses, except you essentially stop drawing petals halfway! A rose bud is simply a younger rose that hasn’t fully bloomed yet, so this should tell you that rose buds should generally be smaller, and the petals will look more tightly wrapped together.

Before we get into tackling a bouquet, also take a moment to think about how a rose would look from different directions.

A rose from the front view will likely give you the widest view of the flower itself. You’ll be able to see the center petals, and all of the outer petals folding around it.

From the quarter (3/4) view, however, the center of the rose should no longer be in right in the middle. You’ll start to see the spherical shape of the flower as it bulges out from the center; some petals will be in dominant view over others. The point here is to keep in mind that a rose is a round, full object - it’s not flat, like a plate.

From the profile/side view, you should be able to see the stem, and the main bulb portion of the flower, where all the petals are connected. This is where you see the fullness and height of the blossom.

Once you feel comfortable with these concepts, and have maybe even tried sketching a few, your challenge for this lesson is to draw your own bouquet of roses. Keep all of the things you learned in mind!

To help guide you through your blossom-icious journey, I’ve taken a rose bouquet sample out of an illustration I drew recently for a freelance job, and have broken it down in to step-by-step guide images that you can download and look at!