How To Paint a Rose in Watercolor Step By Step – Part 4

I worked on the leaves more. I added more depth to them with a mix of alizarin crimson, phthalo blue and sap green. I also added more colour here and there to the roses. I also began painting some of the stems. Here I have started with an underlayer of indian yellow and then I added a wash of sap green and then I added alizarin crimson. I still have to paint some leaves, then I can finally with the stamens and adding the background. I love how this painting looks so far – hopefully you are liking it as well.

I have now begun painting the stamens and began to introduce some other colours to the palette:

Cadmium Yellow deep, Perm. red orange, Kadmiumorange deep, Burnt Sienna.

In the rose, which is in the Center of Interest, I wanted to have the stamens warm and glowing.

In my first layer I used Cadmium Yellow Deep, then I added a mix of Perm. red orange and Kadmiumorange deep. The next layer was a mix of Perm.red orange, Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine for the shadow areas.

On the other roses I wanted to have the stamens a bit different, because there they are older. The bloom has almost reached the end of blooming and the stamens will be more dark.
Here my first layer was a wash of Naples yellow. I then added Burnt sienna and then a mix of burnt sienna and Ultramarine for the shadow areas. Make sure, to keep a small highlight on each stamen.

I then did some more work on the background.

Here is what I did:

At first this area was completely white, there was no stem, no leaves … nothing.

I did an underwash of Indian Yellow and let it completely dry, before I touched this area again. My next wash included the colours Sap Green, Alizarin Crimson, Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green. I layed the colours in, mixed a bit on the palette and/or let them mostly mix on the paper. For dark areas I used a mix of alizarin crimson, phthalo green and phthalo blue. This makes a wonderful colourful black. Do not use black from a tube, it doesn’t sing.

I used more red, when I painted the background beside a green leave, because red is the complimentary colour of green. And I used more green beside a rose petal.
To suggest a stem I only lifted some of the colour with my brush and voila it looks like a stem in the background. That is a great way to suggest things in the background and you will get soft edges, which is very important.

Of course I still have to check later all my other edges. The edges should be soft.

Here is another photo of the whole painting. I will go on with this painting tonight and hopefully post another update.

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