We hope you’re already aware that Mother’s Day is coming up! Since we’re all doing this stay home, lockdown, quarantine thing, it’s not exactly easy to get out and pick up a Mother’s Day card. And there’s nothing quite like sending your Mom a great card for her big day. So, since you probably can’t get out of the house to make it to the store because of Covid-19 and the universal attempts to flatten the curve, we suggest you try making your own. Never attempted to put your fountain pens to artistic use before? Don’t worry, we got you. It’s the perfect quarantine fountain pen project – learn to draw a rose while creating a lovely, heartfelt gift for your Mom for Mother’s Day, without ever leaving the house. #stayhomestaysafe right?

Basic Fountain Pen Drawing Tutorial with The Pen Gangsta:

You’ve probably already met The Pen Gangsta (@pen_gangsta on instagram) in previous fountain pen how tos, fountain pen project tutorials or fountain pen reviews here on the Pen Chalet blog or any of our social media channels, but today she’s got something new (and helpful) for you. She’s going to walk you through how to put your fountain pens and fountain pen inks to good use for Mother’s Day.

Supplies: What You Need Before You Dive In to Today’s Fountain Pen Drawing Tutorial

• 4 fountain pens (each inked with a different color ink)
• 4 inks (red, green, blue, and gray/black)
• a pencil
• an eraser
• fountain pen friendly paper
• paint brush
• water

Fountain Pen Drawing: How to Draw a Long-Stemmed Rose for A Mother’s Day Card

To draw a long-stemmed rose, we used four Pineider Avatar UR fountain pens, each inked with different Monteverde inks. We suggest:

• Monteverde Love Red fountain pen ink
• Monteverde Yosemite Green fountain pen ink
• Monteverde Capri Blue fountain pen ink
• Monteverde Black Ash fountain pen ink

But…you can use your favorites, as long as they aren’t waterproof! You’ll just need to make sure you have one red ink, one green ink, one blue ink, and one gray or black fountain pen ink.

Step by Step Fountain Pen Drawing Tutorial: Draw a Long-Stemmed Rose

1. Grab your sheet of fountain pen friendly paper, and fold it in half.
2. Use your pencil to lightly draw an egg shape. Follow that by a half-circle and then another half circle in the opposite direction followed by a swirl in the middle. Draw lines connecting the shapes. That’s the center of your rose.
3. Next we’ll make our first petal, which will wrap around the center of the rose. We’re going to continuously draw petals of the rose that will wrap around the center of the “egg.” It might look weird right now, all these weird shapes, but eventually, everything will connect, and it will look like a rose. Now, we’ve just made several outer petals, but we’re continually working these petals down towards the bottom. I’ve noticed that – my shape, I would like it to be a little bit longer, so I adjusted that.
4. Next grab your eraser and start erasing that egg shape that appears in between the petals.
5. After your done with that get your pencil and we’re going to work on the leaves and the stem. Your leaves don’t have to be perfect. Just make them a little organic-looking – so it looks as if the rose just grew and blossomed. Maybe add a couple of thorns to your stem. Then from that stem, let’s draw some leaves by just using a natural elongated line and then add a leaf shape.
6. Pick up your fountain pen inked with red fountain pen ink, and start outlining all the petals that we drew with the pencil earlier. Don’t worry if the pencil shows through the red ink. It will blend in just fine when you’re finished.
7. Next grab your cup of water and your paintbrush and since this ink isn’t water-resistant, we’re going to go ahead and use these lines to color in or fill in the petals of the rose. By doing it this way, it will leave the petals light enough that we can go back later and fill in some of that color.
8. While the petals are drying, we’re going to take our fountain pen filled with green ink and start outlining the leaves and the stem. At the tip of each leaf, be sure to leave a little bit of extra ink so you can blend it into the leaves later. Take your green inked fountain pen and make marks along the left side of the stem. That will create a nice shadow and make it look a little bit more realistic.
9. Now let’s take our paintbrush with some water and we’ll start to spread the ink inside the stem and the leaves.
10. Pick up your red inked fountain pen again and go back to re-outline the flower. Fill in some of those areas that might be naturally dark, such as some of the shadows behind the petals. At the bottom of the rose, with the outer petal underneath the blossom, I’m going to go in and make that a darker red. I’m also going to create some shading underneath some of the petals for a more realistic effect.
11. Next take the fountain pen that has blue fountain pen ink and outline the left side of the stem. When you are done with that, go to the leaves and make zig-zaggy patterns along the edges to mimic the look of a rose leaf.
12. Then flip your blue inked fountain pen for a little reverse drawing. Use the reverse of the nib to make lines of the leaves to give it a little patterning (reverse drawing makes finer lines).
13. Next take your pen inked with a dark gray or black ink and we’re going to do some further outlines to the rose, but we’re also going to blend it in as well to create natural shading. We’ll do this throughout the rose to make it look grounded onto the stem.
14. The key is to blend, blend, blend using your paintbrush dipped in water. To blend, just spread the ink around with your wet paintbrush. Once we get towards the center of the rose, put in a little extra shadow in order to create a little more depth within the center of the rose. Take your wet paintbrush and spread that dark ink around. Now your rose is complete.
15. Open up your card and on the inside, let’s write Happy Mother’s Day. And then we’ll follow that with some “faux-lligraphy” with our Pineider Avatar UR fountain pen to add some depth to the letters and make them look really nice. When we’re done with that, let’s draw a big, old heart and fill it with red ink.

Now you can just sign your card and give it to your mom!

Thanks for joining us in making cards Mother’s Day. We hope you enjoyed it (and we hope your mom enjoys it, too). Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there. Stay safe!