How to Draw Sunflowers

Drawing sunflowers is one of the easiest ways to get practice in drawing natural objects. Sunflower pictures themselves make great ornaments for cards, writing paper and border-painting projects--they bring sunshine to any art project. Further, drawing them provides a great way to learn how to reduce something you see to basic abstract shapes and work on drawing realistically by using correct proportions.

Things You'll Need

• Sunflowers
• Vase
• Pencil or charcoal
• Drawing paper

Instructions

1. Put your flowers--all but one--in a vase and look at them. Really look--this takes a little practice, and it may help to talk to yourself, either aloud or silently. Tell yourself how big the petals look, compared to the center. Break your flower into shapes. Find words to describe what's going on in the center--lots of little bumps, and they aren't exactly round. Whole flower--very round--circle and pointed ovals. But when the head droops, do you see a circle or an oval? Tell yourself how big the leaves look compared to the flowers, and how thick the stem is. You may not always have to look at things this way, but having to put what you see into words helps you keep looking hard.

2. Take the flower you left out of the vase apart. Again, you're identifying shapes and proportions. Touch all the parts of the flower to determine textures. Musicians describe this phase as "getting it into your hands." Pulling apart, touching and testing the proportions of your flower will help add to what you have seen with your eyes. Feeling the texture of the leaves, stems and petals and learning how they really fit together will make it easier to convey the real flower in your drawing.

3. Sketch out your whole picture with very light pencil strokes. Technically, you can start at either end of the flower, but, since it's a growing thing, there's a chance your picture will be a bit more realistic if you start the way it grows, stem first, working up to flower. It's easier to convey the weight of the whole thing if you don't just tack a stem on, like a string on a kite.

4. Check all your observations against what you have sketched. You may wish to experiment with the prickly quality of the stem, the roughness and curl of leaves and the silkiness of the petals on another piece of paper. Working out the techniques you think work best will contribute to your final effort. Does a little shading add or detract from those leaves--practice till you're happy.

5. Go back to your sketch and fill in with the techniques you've practiced and stronger drawing strokes. A bit more here, a little less there. Congratulations--it's beautiful!

Tips & Warnings

• While you're trying out techniques, it's a good time to use the same strategies on other kinds of flowers. Sketch from pictures, flowers or memory--the important thing is to observe thoroughly.

• Don't get discouraged. Flowers weren't made in a day either. Keeping a tablet of little sketches or recording them randomly on a bigger sheet of paper all contribute to your learning. If you weren't interested, you could just get a camera. Practice works.