How To Paint Roses, Birds And Leaves

I am no painting artist, I mean I am an artist.

But I wouldn’t call myself a canvas artist by any means.

A few of my favorite artists are Cindy Austin from My Fractured Fairytale, Cindy Ellis, Christie Repasy, and Rebecca Nelson from A Gathering Of Thoughts, Gee Singh-Newbanks.

These women can paint roses and just about anything like nobody’s business.

But today I thought I would teach you how to paint roses, birds and leaves.

Now all of those amazing and talented women that I listed above would probably laugh hysterically if they knew I was teaching how to paint.

But here it goes anyway.

To paint a rose, or how I paint a rose it’s very easy.

First I take a lighter color, usually white or ivory and squeeze a little on a paper plate.

Today I am just adding it right on top of my craft paper.

Next, I’ll grab a darker color.

Before I go any further, here are a few of my favorite brushes.

And depending on what I am painting determines my brush.

For painting roses I usually pull out one of my flat brushes.

These come in different sizes.

For painting leaves the filbert brush works great.

Leaves are so easy to paint with this brush.

And for scrolls, vines and anything delicate I use my liner brush.

So after loading my brush with my paint I start painting my rose.

First painting an upside down U.

 Next I load up my brush again and paint a U right underneath, but also connecting the upside down U.

Does that make sense?

Okay, I have no idea why I have so much paint on my hand, seriously I am not a tidy painter.

Can ya tell.

Then I start painting C’s all around my rose, these are my petals.

I keep working all around my rose.

Okay, this is a little hard to explain, but I load my brush the same way.

Using a lighter color then a darker color.

I use my filbert brush, I push down on my brush and as I am pushing down on my brush I slowly move the brush making a leaf.

This is super easy to do, the brush really does most of the work.

I’m just playing around to show you, I don’t think I would paint the leaves like this on a piece.

But you get the idea.

Sometimes I add vines or scrolls.

When I do that I use my liner brush.

Just make sure to water your paint down, and load up your brush with paint.

For this you only need one color.

And I prefer using a longer liner brush rather than a smaller brush.

With a longer brush you can work with it longer.

A shorter brush, you will have to keep loading it up with paint.

This is a rose bud that I painted.

This is basically just as I shared with my rose, but I don’t add any petals.

Painting a bird is super easy.

Just look at the shape of a bird, the head is round, the body a little fuller then a thin tail with feathers.

So I start with the head, loading my brush as I did with my rose.

I sort of think of it as painting a question mark, but not side ways.

At the end of my question mark, I bring the brush back up.

Once I finish the top, I start filling in the bottom.

Oh I forgot to mention, I am using a flat brush for this.

As I get towards the back of the bird, I lightly paint the feathers.

Just using a very light touch.

Next I add a wing on the side.

Using a similar shape to the bird itself.

If you look at the bird above it sort of looks like a wing.

Then I start adding details.

I am using my filbert brush.

To make the eye I used the back of my brush, I just dipped it in a little paint then placed it on my painted bird.

The bird claws were painted using my liner brush.

Next I added some branches, since my bird is supposed to be in a tree.

Remember branches are not perfect.

They are thick, thin, curved and straight.

Load up your liner brush and just start making branches.

I sort of move my hand around left to right, slowly to make the branches.

Next I add my leaves, and as you can see they are not perfect.

And that’s okay.

I probably could have added more leaves, but you get the idea.

I used to do this type of painting all the time.

I just don’t seem to have the time to do it anymore, but it’s really therapeutic, so I need to make the time.

And the reason I wanted to share this is because anyone can paint.

Yes friends, you can.

I know my roses are not perfect, and neither is my bird.

But it does look like a rose, and the bird looks like a bird right?

So give it a try.

When you are painting, think about the shape of what ever you are painting.

It makes a great visual guide.

You can also trace a picture, and then paint it.

That’s very easy to do too.

But it does take more time, and I prefer this method since it’s faster.

Remember I like instant gratification.