Rose garland

1. Base the whole body

Flat brush, cream, long strokes top to bottom. Two thin coats beat one thick one — a thick coat cracks as it dries.

Do the neck too. A bare band at the top is the first thing anybody notices.

2. Five circles, right the way round

In blush, paint five filled circles where the roses will go — different sizes, none of them level with each other, and spaced so they wind around the vase rather than sitting in a row on the front.

Turn the vase as you place each one. Five roses facing forward is a bunch; five winding round is a garland.

3. Spiral each one

Load dusty rose and, starting at the centre of a circle, paint a loose spiral outwards — three turns, letting the brush wobble. That wobble is what makes it a rose.

Do not go back over a spiral to neaten it. This is the step people ruin by tidying.

4. Deepen the middles

A small comma stroke of deep rose curled around the centre of each bloom, and one on the outer edge. Instant depth for about four seconds of work.

5. Join them up

Sage, fine liner. Run a curving stem from one bloom to the next, all the way round and back to where you started. This is the step that turns five flowers into one garland.

The stem should pass behind the blooms, not stop at them. Take it right up to the edge of a circle and start again the other side.

6. Leaves and buds

Press-and-lift sage leaves along the stems, three or four between each pair of blooms, and small rose buds in the wider gaps. Keep going until no bare patch is bigger than a fifty-pence piece.

Leaves in threes look planted; leaves in twos look like a mistake you repeated.

7. Gold at the neck

Fine liner, one gold band around the neck, and a scatter of gold dots in whatever cream is left. Leave it somewhere warm overnight.