How to Draw A Simple Rose

It's not that difficult to draw a rose. It's actually easier to draw a rose than it is to draw a decent circle. That's because when you draw a rose you have many points of reference to compare and "triangulate" against.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, if you are here looking to plop down a circle, triangles, a curly line and end of with a rose, you won't find it here (there are plenty of websites that teach that way and quite frankly that's NOT how I teach drawing (and am philosophically opposed to that method). But, I can still show you through this short article how I believe it should be done.

Typically, a rose is tall and narrow, and you may even want to draw it in a small vase.  But before you begin drawing it that way, try to draw a "short" rose, one that isn't so tall. Better still, try drawing 3 roses.

That will help you with your overall proportions immediately (the untrained eye has a habit of not accurately gauging and duplicating height vs. width). By forcing your brain into a smaller area you will do better, until you are more practiced for highly disproportionate arrangements.

Once your arrangement is set up, make an oblong circle on your paper that closely resembles the rose, stem and leaves as one large shape. That defines both the final size AND overall dimensions.

Then look for and use your pencil to LIGHTLY find and outline general smaller circular areas--get your mind off the idea of drawing the rose, then adding the stems, then the leaves--your proportions will always be off if you take this approach.

Then look for and use your pencil to find even smaller shapes, always comparing this agains the larger and even the largest oblong circle that you started with.

Once you have a relatively good handle on overall proportions then you can begin working your way down into the detail. If you constantly compare relationships using triangles you will keep those proportions solid and the final rose (or any flower or flower arrangement) will always be true to the original.

Now you're ready to draw a single rose. The most important piece of information I can give you about drawing a single rose is that you should make the arrangement using something else to set off the compostion in more balanced way. In other words, the single rose in a single vase is going to appear quite odd. That's because the eye really doesn't like to see tall narrow objects--the eye craves balance.

So put something else into the composition if you intend on drawing "just the rose, stem and leaves". Even if you are striving for the "frail" or "isolated" look, an upright rose will likely still look awkward given nothing else in the drawing.

Alternatively, you can lay the rose down with the petals end towards you and the stem and leaves in the background. If you look at that, you'll still get a balanced look.

Remember though to first do the One Big Shape around it to get your proportions correct first.

After you complete the One Big Shape, you can circle areas of what you are trying to copy (a picture or a real rose modeling for you). If you want to see an example of what I'm talking about with One Big Shape, Secondary shapes, and details, click here and you can see how I develop drawing an apple and a cup.

Then you finally can lay in the details like petals, leaves, even thorns.

Here's the main point. Never try to draw one "thing", then add another, then another.

Always draw the "whole" arrangement first, working your way down through the details, constantly cycling around with your eyes checking correct point relationships, angles, flows and line directions.

--that's the ONLY way you will get your proportions correct!

(Hint: I teach all of these techniques in my online course)

These are just a few of the many tips and tricks that will help you with your drawings.

But if you're really interested in learning how to draw--how to draw people, how to draw flowers, how to draw animals...how to draw ANYTHING, then here's where you can get a complete video course to help you steer clear of common mistakes and avoid creating bad habits.

Choose the plan that fits you.

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Paul Wagner
Founder, Art Training International
How to Draw Online

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