Rose Fever 2013

Roses painted on a scrap of paper

As much as I loved painting the roses in my previous blog post to me they felt too tight. They bordered in places on being slightly botanical . I always aim for a mixture of loose sections and fine detail to complete my watercolours as a mystical combination of styles. I haven't painted roses very much this year so decided to grab a few scraps of paper this morning and work on a few first washes, looking for roses in each. The next stages bring the rose to life with final brushwork.

The above study has a fabulous feel to it as a painting and now I wish I had worked on new paper not scraps! I have several gorgeous rose paintings decorating my studio today now, that would have looked wonderful framed.

For followers of my blog who have asked about my brush sets and want to paint roses in a loose style following my style. I use my number ten sable for the petals and wash. I use my soft sable rigger to "lift" petal edges, very gently to encourage the petal edges appear.  Please note, it has to be a soft sable as the technique at this stage needs to be carried out very gently.  Other brush mixes tend to damage the paper which  can leave obvious marks when dry.  My colours flow and interact, guided by my sable brushes which hardly touch the paper surface due to their design,quality and of course my gentle use of them. I also use my rigger to pick up tiny amounts of pigment which I drop into areas in a wet in wet technique, to add strength in colour where needed. Such as shadows at the base of petals.

My brush sets can be found on my web site. They are ideal for painting roses as they are made of the finest Kolinsky sable. They move easily allowing pigment to flow across paper. If you hold my size 10 sable away from the brush end and allow the point to form curves you can get a great result. Use my size ten brush for the outer soft petal edges and the rigger for detail and pigment dropping.

 Available from 

http://www.jeanhaines.com/kolinskysablebrushes