Flower Drawing, a step by step drawing guide for beginners.

Well of course I'm gonna have an article centered on flower drawing.  Flowers have such a hold on us in our daily lives, so much so, we use them to speak for us!  Below (at bottom of article) is the high speed drawing video of the picture given.  Now, this page talks about some basics in flower drawing, and a link is given on how to use a great tool as a drawing guide to get to this point.  I use this drawing guide, called a proportional divider, to accurately check my drawing before I proceed to the shading part of the drawing.

flower drawingHibiscus flower drawing

We use flowers to express love, friendship, sympathy and a full range of emotions.  With its universal appeal, it makes for a SUPER subject to use in painting and in drawing. 

Nothing gets the creative juices flowering than simplicity and a super subject.  Simplicity in that with just a drawing pad, pencil, eraser and a flower, you can begin your journey!

Your drawing can become the beginnings of a master piece oil painting or a finished fine art graphite drawing.  So lets get started!

Lets begin by talking a little about the anatomy of a flower.  Yea, I know, this can be boring, but it is important to understand some of the things that make a flower hold its shape, and have such weird bumps and lumps.

flower drawingflower drawing

Why is this important?  Each flower will have these components.  Knowing this, you'll be looking for them to include in your drawing.

Knowing also makes it easier to draw what you observe because you will better understand what you are actually looking at.

And this really is a key point in flower drawing as well as in painting flowers.  Plus, when I say Stigma, you'll know what part of the flower this is.

You may have already seen these photo's below elsewhere on the site, but they work perfectly in helping to break down the flower image into its basic forms.  These basic shapes, Cups, saucers, disks, trumpets, bells, etc. are repeated in so many of the flowers we want to draw.


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An important part to think about in arranging your flower before setting out to draw it.

Another item that you need to pay attention to will be the angle in which you are observing your subject.  If you are directly above the flower or its blossom is facing you straight on, or maybe at a slight angle will change what you observe and put to paper.  If you're doing a number of blossoms, then you may have all three examples as seen below.

flower drawingflower drawing

OK, now you have some of the very basics in pencil flower drawing, you can click over to my article that talks about making accurate measurements and getting your proportions spot on using the proportional divider.  This tool is invaluable in establishing your outline to begin your drawing.  Just click the link to a great tool and drawing guide.

Now for the speed video of the drawing shown at the beginning of the article.  I have a few explanations below the video to help understand what I'm doing here. 

And below that a few more I've found worthy of watching.

6 things you will need in drawing flowers.

There are six tools I am using in the video. 

  1. To start off with, a piece of tracing paper is used to rest my hand on and prevent smudging of the work underneath.  
  2. The white paper stump is used for precise blending after a mark is made with the
  3. soft lead number 2 drawing pencil.
  4. Then for some touch up erasing, I use a kneaded eraser to into those fine small areas.  By pinching, rolling and shaping the rubber, I can get it into any area I need to.
  5. You then see me bring in a mechanical vibrating erasure.  This is used to cover a larger area and finally
  6. A small metal erasing template, this is used in conjunction with the kneaded erasure and the mechanical erasure to protect areas I don't want to be erased.

Flower Drawing video's

I love the way this artist uses the stump as a blending tool.  It's such a soft blend.  Pencil artists typpically will use a harder pencil and lots of cross hashing to achieve a blend.  They then build up on top softer and softer leads to develop a really dark shadow.  To see a fantastic pencil artist, take a look at this fellows work.  

Nolan Clark has been an online artist for a long time now, and he does a fantastic job in teaching you how to draw and paint!  As I only use drawing to create a preliminary work for a larger painting, then transferring that drawing to a canvas, I don't get into the great details as he does in his studio and classes.  Don't misunderstand, I've done some pretty awesome pencil works in my time.  I actually started in drawing detailed realism just to see if I had what it takes to stick to a large piece for multiple hours for days and sometimes weeks.  But it's not my passion as painting is and I dont feel like a true authority on the subject.  So, check out his site to get more details.

Did you enjoy, or learn something from this page?  Why not create some good Karma, and pass it on? Facebook like us, Pin the images you love, or Google + and let others feel the warmth!

Care to see more of my work?  Click here to head over to my fine art site at delmusphelps.com