Bavarian Rose tutorial

This afternoon, in between boring paperwork and housework, I wanted to share with you a painting design that I have been obsessing about. It currently adorns various White House tables and caravans amongst other things and, as of this afternoon, a cheap £3 guitar I bought for my daughter at a boot sale. I call the Bavarian Rose as I first saw it on a traditional wooden beer tent in Germany last year. I photographed it and have been reproducing it ever since. The design is easy and all you need are a few acrylic paints, green, red, white and black and a soft smallish rounded brush. You can paint any surface with the right base coat and I find a primer and satinwood works well on both metal and wood. If you want to paint a previously laminated surface like kitchen cupboards use ESP, a fantastic watery primer that stinks but allows the paint to stick. Have a go as it looks good anywhere and works in any colours too, Kat x 

First use your brush to paint a rounded square shape, slightly larger at the bottom. You can draw an outline first if that helps.

Next paint some circles around the lower half of the shape overlapping each other. Also paint some teardrop leaves, you may need to do a couple of coats so their not too transparent.

Next mix a lighter green by adding some white and do some stokes on each leave to add dimension. Also paint a pointed oval on the top of the rose.

Now its time to add white accents again in the form of simple strokes. I add a small amount of red to the white to create a pinky hue on the rose. When you use a soft rounded brush it will do the stokes for you, also outline the black oval and paint three small white dots inside it.

Finally add some buds using the pinky white and voila, a simple, rustic rose ideal for embellishing anything really. Just add varnish if you want to protect it or its going outside.