Painting Roses in a Loose Style : Foliage

 Painting Roses in a Loose Style

Adding Foliage

 One of my most popular posts on my blog is "How to Paint Roses in a Loose Style" and I love that it is still viewed so often. But I have been asked to add another post on how to paint the rose foliage. So I am keeping a promise and here it is!

Once you have painted the simple first stages of the first washes with the roses in place and simple background colour it is time to strengthen the foliage building up the painting towards a full composition.  Here is  "How to Paint Roses Foliage"  in three simple steps. 

It really is as easy as 1-2-3 !



Stage 1.

Start by adding stronger green as an outline to only a quarter of your rose. NOT all the away around it! ( See image 1. )Notice how this green addition makes the main and lower rose stand out from the background.

 

 Image 1. Just a touch of dark green on two sides of the main rose to give hints of the outline

Stage 2. 

While these new green lines around the rose are still damp, bleed them away with a clean damp brush to make lovely leaf shapes. At this stage, drop in colour of the flower to the still wet leaf shape.  I have dropped in small amounts of Alizarin Crimson to my new,wet leaves. By picking pigment up from my palette with my sable rigger brush. This  addition of rose colour forms a subtle harmony between the rose and the foliage.

Image 2. Forming the first leaves and adding the rose colour pigment to them

Step 3. 

Now add some violet leaves in the distance,under the lower leaves. Next drag your rigger brush through the still wet leaves to give an illusion of branches.  Simple isn't it?

Image 3 Adding distant leaves and branches

If you study roses as they grow, painting them really does become easier. Observe leaf shapes, branches and how each flower connects with others. Have fun painting as many roses as you can and enjoy them.

There is a lovely saying "Take time to smell the roses". How often do we all take that time? And another saying is " There is no better time than the present"! Which is a suitable one as this demonstration is a gift to my blog followers who want to learn how to paint roses as I do.

My "How to Paint Roses in a Loose Style" demonstrations are given freely on my blog in the hope that readers will fall in love with painting them in a loose style and enjoy working in watercolour as much as I do. But if my blog posts do help you at all and you feel you would like to say thank you, a small donation to a Cancer Charity of your choice would mean the world to me.

Happy painting!

Jean