Steve, your question came at an appropriate moment because I needed this kind of illustration for a booklet about my Rose Garden. Of course I am very interested to see your rose, but you have time enough because I put the deadline for printing the gallery pages at the end of April. Professional? I don't know because I have no feelings about what is professional or not; I only try to make my drawings tasty enough.

Soquili, education is the subject. My community rose garden has educative goals (chiefly about rose and plants general history and botany). At the moment I am sowing roses (to create new varieties) with the childs of our primary school.

And about the technique, it is not so complicated. The outline is quickly drawn with the straight line option of the freehand tool (press only the "Alt" key while tracing lines) and the curves are adjusted afterwards. Then I pick the colors of the different parts with the color picker directly on the bitmap (the pinkish one is an invention; the rose of Lindley's illustration was creamy white). Then only I proceed with bevels and I add some transparency and the shadows.
I didn't have any crash while working. Only sometimes I was constrain to force redrawing in zooming slighty in and out. And of course I save often and under two different file names.

Kindly,
ivan

Be educative, re-invent the Rose.