How to Draw a Rose
Rose drawing copyright Gretchen Little. Drawn (but not traced) with pen & ink using a photograph as a guide.
How To Draw a Rose in Photoshop
Digital Pen & Ink
The shading, coloring, and the quality of the line is what makes it a unique drawing instead of just a copy.
Here's how I do it:
I started with this rose photograph posted on Flickr by lincolnian. It has a Creative Commons License on it that allows for "remixing" or altering of the image as long as attribution is given.
First I made the transparency of the photo about 90%. Then I created a new layer to draw the tracing on. Using a pen & ink "brush" I created in Photoshop to mimic a fountain pen, I traced the outlines of the petals.

Using lines that change thickness adds dimension to a drawing. That's what makes it look done by hand.
After doing the outline I like to use little dots to create shading. I kept the original photo visible under the drawing to guide me in where to put the dots. Lines of dots show the shape of the petal. Just look for the faint lines or "veins" in the photo and follow them. As my art teacher said over and over again, "less is more". Just use the lines to give an idea of the shape of the petal. More dots makes a darker shadow.

You could stop right there and have a drawing that could be used for clip art and as the basis for many other works of art.
Or you can add color as I did. I used other Photoshop brushes to "paint" on transparent layers of color. Using the layers function in PS I put the dark gold color on one layer, and the bright yellow on another.
The darker shading is much the same effect as you would get with a pen and ink wash. The yellow color would be watercolor paint.
The eraser function is my best friend in Photoshop. I lay down color and then use a scatter style brush to pull some of it back out. It gives it a more natural texture.

That's the simplest way I know to draw a rose. Every mark you make with the graphic pen (or even the mouse, if you're extremely patient) is your own individual signature.
Don't worry about being exact! That's the great thing about drawing flowers. Unlike a portrait of a person, as long as you get the general shape of the petals and overall flower it will be recognizable. Flowers give you an opportunity to play around with techniques and see what happens. Most of my art is intuitive and accidental.
Photoshop Rose Drawing Tutorial #2
Showing a slightly different way to do the shading
I started with this photo by kostas.v on Flickr.
I changed it to black and white so that I could more clearly see the values from black to grey to white.

From there I opened a new layer and outlined the rose with a bold pen photoshop "brush" as I did in the first tutorial above. (I hid the photo to show you just the drawing, but it's still there in my layers.)

I use a lot of layers when I work in Photoshop which gives me more flexibility as to what I can remove or change later on in the drawing's progress. So, opening another layer between the photo and the outline, I began to fill in some of the shading using crosshatching. The shadows were my guide.

I ended up with this:

I was trying to stay true to the actual shading on the photograph, but when I was done I decided that didn't have enough contrast. It had no visual punch. So I went back in and redrew over the the lines I had (using several new layers), going with what I thought looked good instead of what the photo dictated.

Notice how I used some of the lines of the crosshatching to show the actual shape of the petal. After I got that all drawn in I threw in some more random crosshatching to keep things interesting. It also takes the pressure off from having to be perfect.
That is the basic, clip-art-like rose drawing. From there you can do all sorts of things with it. I chose to color it in digitally again.
Using a chalk "brush" in Photoshop, I laid down some color underneath the drawing using another layer.

I continued on using different shades and values of red. I really like to use the eraser brushes in Photoshop to pull color back out again, too. Keeps things from looking too flat and more like what I call "analog art".
I could have messed around with all that for hours, but this is where I stopped.

If you had a drawing like this of your own you could print it out and use it in collages and other mixed media art. There is a great book about how to do that called Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista
My Favorite Drawing Tools
2
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6
Photoshop Elements is Photoshop Lite to me. Probab more...0 points
3
Rotring Art Pen Sketching EF
Non-waterproof fountain pen with cartridges. Perfe more...0 points
4
Koh-I-Noor Artist Set of 7 Technical Pens
Koh-I-Noor 7 Pen Set...This technical pen set incl more...0 points
5
Stonehenge Pads - Vellum - 11 x 14 - 250gsm - 15 sheets/pad
Stonehenge is my all time favorite paper.0 points
6
Adobe Photoshop CS2 [OLD VERSION]
There's a CS3 version, but I'm still happy with CS more...0 points
How to Draw Flowers Books
Also known as botanical art
Photos to Use as Guides for Your Drawings
Please give credit to the photographers
Links to Rose Drawing Tutorials
- How to Draw a Rose in Pencil
- Including the finer points of details of shading.
- Howstuffworks "How to Draw a Rose"
- Learn how to draw a rose and other flowers and plants with our step-by-step instructions. Bring out your inner artist as you learn how to draw a rose.

My Pen & Ink Rose Drawing Using Koh-I-Noor Pens
Get a Graphic Tablet!
It'll change your life! At least it did mine...
Wacom Graphire Bluetooth 6 x 8-Inch Tablet
Amazon Price: Too low to display (as of 11/07/2009)![]()
I went from complaining and whining about not doing art for twenty years (!) to drawing almost every day once I got my graphic tablet. 'Nuff said.
Bloggers Drawing Roses
Image courtesy of Essjay is happy in NZ on Flickr.
- ARIZONA YANK: Yellow Rose Drawing (gimpified)
- and, I've been playing around with some of the filters contained in this new (for me) toolbox. This is the first result. The filter used was the pencil drawing tool. Again, it's from among the roses in Sun Village's Memorial Garden. ...
- May's Machete: Original Drawing Auction: Another Bed of Roses
- The beautiful drawing up for grabs this week is Another Bed of Roses: Detail. With Frame. The image is 12 x 18 inches, framed without a mat in a frame of the same size. How to Bid. Bid by leaving comments on this blog through noon ...
- Painting Seminar and Drawing Tattoo Style Roses Course ...
- So I made it back from Mario Barth's Biggest Tattoo Show On Earth in one piece. The show was good and I appreciate all the artist who picked up a print or.
- Terry » Blog Archive » How To Draw A Roses
- Roses arent impossible to draw, but they do take a little work Drawing step by step I will show you how to create great looking roses every HowStuffWorks How to Draw Flowers and Plants How to Draw a Rose How to Draw a Cactus How to Draw ...
Twitters About Drawing Roses
Image courtesy of Ashley Dinges on Flickr.
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- Kouyou_GgG
- Bara bara bara i'm drawing roses(dunno why but still drawing) taekini bara (...) namida nado nai Leon Oswald portrait :))XD
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- Miilys
- http://twitpic.com/olx2h - "Who said we keep drawing butterflies and roses? Yes, we do that, but we can do some more things, If you don't kn
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- Littlegamgee
- drawing up more script fonts and roses for my cousins tattoo
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- OuranHost42
- Favorites include: anime, manga, drawing, roses, red, blood, sushi, vampires, cats
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- MileyCNichols
- pg 9 drawing: cd MJ Thriller, box Nintendo Mario Brothers, DVD the Pink Panther, cd Somebody Like U Keith Urban, multicolor long stem Roses,
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- monsieurcutts
- Drawing roses, diamonds and swallows late into the night
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- Sonamoni89
- is drawing roses :)
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- freytagsflorist
- Have you entered our drawing for free roses AND delivery? Takes just a sec. Winner on monday! http://bit.ly/2YIngQ
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- backoffbitch_
- @lucerocq Haha, ok. Well... Music, 60-80s, Photography, BMX, drawing, rain, taking the subway x) Haha. N guns n roses, duh! Haha. ya?
Your Thoughts
Ladydove62 wrote...
Really lovely. I enjoy drawing but do it the old fashioned way. Paper and pencil:)






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