Roses are very popular flowers, commonly seen as a symbol of love. They're very difficult to draw, though—they're made of many layers of petals. You need to add them carefully one by one, and then shade the whole construction. In this quick tutorial I'll show you how to do it if you want to learn how to draw a rose with a pencil, without relying on a reference. But if you want, feel free to check out any of these Envato Elements references to help you:
Follow this realistic rose drawing tutorial over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube Channel:
What You Will Need
To get started with this realistic rose drawing tutorial, you'll need a few things:
- Hard pencil (HB)
- Medium soft pencil (2B or slightly lower)
- Soft pencil (5B or lower)
- Sheet of paper
- Pencil sharpener
Do you have everything together? Then let's get going and start our rose pencil drawing.
Step 1
Start your simple rose drawing with a teardrop/egg shape with a hard pencil. Use very light lines. This will be the inner bud of the rose.
Step 2
Draw the "opening" of this shape.
Step 3
Draw little petals inside the rose illustration.
Step 4
Close those petals into a heart shape—this will be the flower outline drawing of other petals.
Step 5
Connect the rose flower outline drawing with the rest of the bud, creating a petal shape.
Step 6
One more heart...
... attached to the bud of your rose flower drawing.
Step 7
One more time, draw the heart shape in your rose sketch, but this time make it less regular and more open.
The lines connecting it with the bud will create an effect of depth if you lead them correctly.
Step 8
We need one more petal on this level of your simple rose drawing. It will have a more complicated perspective, so look carefully:
Step 9
We need to place the bud inside a "cup" of petals in the rose flower drawing. First, make it out of small petals...
... then use larger ones.
Step 10
The rest of the petals in your realistic rose drawing should bend more and more down.
Step 11
When you're done, press harder over the lines you want to see better to bring out the final shape.
Step 12
Take a softer pencil and shade the inner parts of the rose flower drawing. First draw lightly...
... then press harder to achieve a darker shade.
Step 13
Use the same pencil to slightly stress some edges of the petals. Don't draw all over them!
Step 14
Go back to a hard pencil and use it to add a subtle texture to the illuminated parts. The darker your rose, the darker you can go here.
Step 15
Take the softest pencil and finish shading your simple rose drawing with it, putting it in the darkest crevices.
Beautiful!
You've learned how to draw a beautiful rose! If you'd like to publish it on the Internet, make sure you prepare the scan/photo properly first. These tutorials and resources will help you with it:
Quick Tip: Clean Up Your Traditional Drawings in Photoshop
How to Enhance Traditional Art in Adobe Photoshop
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How to Draw Animals: Cats and Their Anatomy
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