How to Draw Simple Flowers & Plants
Flowers and plants are some of the first things beginning artists attempt to draw. Drawing flowers and plants isn't hard to do if you have the patience and use a reference photo to help when you first get started. Flowers make good central subject matter or work well as a backdrop for landscape and other types of drawings. With just a little practice, you can draw known flowers and plants or even make up your own species.
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Instructions
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1
Decide on the composition of your picture. Determine if you are going to draw flowers and plants in an outdoor setting, such as a garden, or if you will draw your plants in pots or other containers. Decide how much of the sketch is going to be taken up with flowers and how much will be plant foliage.
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Use a soft pencil to sketch in the outline of your flowers and plants. Use your eraser to help shape the edges of the plants. Working from a reference photo can give you an idea of the space you're going to need to fill with your outline sketch.
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3
Study the flowers in your reference photo to identify the shapes that make up the center of the flower and its petals. For example, many flowers are made up of circles, ovals, or triangles. Use a pencil to sketch the basic shape of the flowers.
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4
Add leaves to your picture. If you're plant is in a flower pot, bring the leaves over the edges and extend them along the bottom of your sketch paper.
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Darken the outline of your sketch with either a soft lead pencil or a dark-colored pencil. Use a colored pencil if you plan to color your flowers and leaves once you've finished sketching them.
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Add details to your flowers and leaves using the same pencil you used to outline them. Add creases and wrinkles in the leaves with short, slightly squiggled lines or sharp curved lines applied to the leaves randomly. To bring out the center of your flowers, use short pencil strokes and shading. You'll color over these darker shadings to create lighting effect.
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Bring out the edge depth of your leaves and flowers by going around each section with a darker shade of the color that you will use to color that section. If you have yellow leaves, use a darker shade of yellow to thicken the outline. Instead of coloring lightly to dictate shades of light and dark, darken areas around the areas you want to appear lighter. This will allow you to bring out the reflective light. Working with several shades blended with the main color will help add texture and light to your plants.
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Color your flower pots with a combination of brown and red color pencils, using quick diagonal strokes and going over the drawing several times to darken it.
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