Drawing Tutorial

LEAVES, TREES, AND FLOWERS

Flowers and leaves come in beautiful shapes and sizes; they can be used to decorate many types of artwork, such as borders, patterns, gardens, and home scenes. A simple floral bouquet drawing makes a sweet gift, and leaves arranged into patterns are great for embellishing gift wrap and tags. Combine those leaves into a larger shape to draw a gorgeous tree!

LEAVES

Leaves have one thing in common: a central vein. Here are a few basic leaves with different shapes and vein styles.

These leaves and fronds may look more complicated, but breaking them down into basic shapes makes them easy to draw. Best of all, they add an element of fun!

Draw some leaves with veins. Make them as simple or as complicated as you’d like! Use lighter colors for the leaves and darker colors for the veins. Rotate the book so you and your kids can practice together side by side!

FLOWERS

Flowers come in an array of colors, shapes, leaf formations, and sizes—and they are simply beautiful! Some of the easiest flowers to draw are daisies and sunflowers. They feature just a puff at the center for the stamen, seeds, and petals all around.

Start by drawing the center of the flower using a series of small circles or dots.

With another color, draw long, narrow petals that end in a soft point.

Color in the petals, and add a stem!

You can also foreshorten the shape of the flower to draw it from the side. Draw the center of the flower as a dome; then add a petal on each side.

Draw the rest of the petals, gradually shortening them as you reach the halfway point between the first two petals and lengthening them as you reach the other side.

Add the rest of the petals and draw in the stem.

Here are some more floral shapes that you may want to practice drawing. I combined them with the leaves shown here. Some of them look more realistic, whereas others feature wacky colors. That’s part of the fun of drawing flowers: You can personalize them however you want!

TREES

Trees are an important element of your drawing-skills toolkit. Once you learn to draw trees, you’ll be able to create entire forests and woodlands, which are popular subjects for kids! Trees can also be used to soften and add life to an urban scene.

Use light gray to form the treetop using swirling, scribbling marks—also called “scumbling.”

Using quick marks and scumbling, add light green, allowing some of the base gray color to peek through. Concentrate your marks where you want the leaves to appear densest. Add a medium-green layer on top.

With a dark shade of green, add dots to create shadows on the densest leaves.

Use brown to add the tree trunk. With a light touch, create the branches showing through the leaves.

Apply the same drawing techniques to create other types of trees and shrubs. Remember to change how you make your marks depending on the shape of the tree’s leaves.