The clay rose easily fit in my hand since it was smaller than my middle finger

A rose in hand…

A red clay rose close up tp show the individual petals
The rose from the side

I needed something more to practice on today and I noticed my origami flowers not far away.  Why not practice on a flower?  I remembered seeing a clay rose, although I don’t remember where I saw it, and decided to try it out.  A crepe paper flower is made by creating individual petals and usig tape to wrap them around the stem.  Using that theory I made a number of small petals that looked roughly the same size.  When I thought I had enough, I started wrapping them around each other.  I wound up with a rose that was deformed where it should have touched the stem.  There was just too much clay back there to look proper.  I looked at it sadly for a few minutes trying to figure out what I’d done wrong and how I should adjust for the next one.  Then I realized something.  I was working in clay.  If something doesn’t look right it doesn’t have to be destroyed to be fixed.  I picked up the red clay rose in my hand and pinched off the back end of the rose.  With less length and a slight rounding of the back, I got a rather nice looking practice rose.  I want to figure out how to create therose correctly the first time, but I think my first attempt at making a clay rose turned out pretty well.

A close up of a clay rose from the front.

The rose up close