How to Draw Bamboo Trees

Drawing trees can be a daunting task for any cartoonist as most cartoonists focus on drawing the cartoon characters rather than on the background items, such as plants and trees. Drawing bamboo trees requires just a little knowledge about the anatomy of a tree. Get out your pen and ink and get ready to draw some oriental trees known as bamboo trees. You'll have pandas flying from the leaves of your beautiful trees in no time.

Things You'll Need

• Color pencils

Instructions

1. Place your drawing paper on a desk and measure the size of the tree you want to draw. Use your eyes to estimate the size of the tree. First draw the pot of the bamboo tree if you're doing a domesticated tree. If not, skip this step and just start with the tree.

2. Draw the stalk by creating a long, thin rectangle for the main trunk. The rectangle may have a very slight curvature if you desire. Keep the lines parallel to each other and draw them going straight up.

3. Add a branch that goes outward at the top and to the side of the rectangle and then tapers upward in a smooth curve and ends in a point. At the point, add three long, narrow, pointed leaves at the end that all start at the same point but branch out about 25 to 30 degree angles from each other. The shape of the leaf is similar to a kayak, except it is a little more rounded on the end that attaches to the stem.

4. Draw more stalks if you wish, adding various bends and twists in the drawing. Make breaks in the bamboo at regular intervals by drawing perpendicular lines across the stalks to indicate the places where the bamboo has grown. Once finished, color the stalk with colored pencils with green and other bamboo colors, such as yellow.

References

• How to Draw Cartoons Online: How to Draw Cartoon Bamboo