Many of us are admirers of great art but few would consider themselves artists. Although most children draw anything they can imagine, this tends to wane towards adulthood as some specialize as artists and others turn their attention elsewhere. But the reality is that you don’t need formal training to draw or get good at it. Nobody was born with a paintbrush in their hand. Every great master hand to learn their craft from the ground up. You can start doing this at any age and see how far you can go, even in private. Start with this exercise of a simple rose drawing.

The Wineglass Shape

It can help if you break things down to the basics and find identical items that can serve as your anchors. For example, we learned to draw boxes by making two overlapping squares and connecting the corresponding corners together. We also learned to draw bears using the number six for the arms and legs. When it comes to simple rose drawing, you can imagine it as a wineglass with the flower as the main container and the stem as the handle. So draw your basic wineglass shape first, even if it just a letter U with a long tail below. Add leaves to the stem and build the petals above.

Draw a spiral in the middle of a page. Go from one dot and radiate a curve outward a few times. This will be the center of your rose when viewed from the top. You can now add petals that look like spades without the bottom part, as this is obscured by your spiral. Layer several spades around the flower. About three or four will do. Then you can draw leaves jutting out to the side.

The Curved Stem

You may also start with the stem and focus on this instead of the flower. You will only need to draw a slightly curved line going fro top to bottom. Add a second curve that follows the first, but this time make a few spikes for the thorns. Do the same with the original line. Now you can begin adding leaves to the left and right of the stem. Gives these leaves some details like midribs and pointed ends. Real roses have green sepals below the petals so create these first. Then you can move on to building one petal at a time for the flower. Go from the outer edges to the inner edges.

Drawing a rose is easy once you get the hang of it.