Sketch and Painting of a Rose

This is a sketch of a rose and I drew this quite a long time ago. Although I prefer painting to sketching, sketching or drawing is, however, unavoidable because to paint a picture at least an outline sketch is necessary. Abstract painting and professional painters can be the exception to this but  for the learners like me first and the most important step is to get a good sketch or outline. Therefore, I sketched this rose first. Later, when I felt like painting I simply drew its outline and then made its painting which I am posting below.

While painting this I chose to do some adventure and hence used acrylic colors. However, I decided to paint it in the water color style which I had learnt recently and thus, I nearly messed up.



If I had used water colors, then, this painting would have looked better because I could have corrected the errors easily and the water colors were more suitable with this theme as well. However, still, I thought I should post this because it would first, help me know the opinions of audiences and second, it would be safe in a digital format online (who knows the real version may get old, damaged or whatever in course of time although they are safe with me at present) and it would become a matter of remembrance later.

The problem with this painting is too high contrast and that was difficult to adjust with the acrylic colors. Acrylic colors are better when you don't have to show a lot of variations in color. Here I tried to vary color from dark, in the inner part of the petals, to very bright, in the outer part. However, I didn't manage to achieve that range.

I had painted a beautiful rose with acrylic colors a few years back and I didn't know water color style of painting back then and I used my own intuition or aptitude to paint that. Back then, I had learnt to use acrylic colors only through my experience and hence, I somehow, used to manipulate colors in my favor and that worked well for that time. I have two beautiful paintings of that time using acrylic paints and I will post them here someday!

Your views and suggestions in the comments below.