How to Draw Plants
Enroll in the Life Drawing Academy now!
How to Draw Plants
Tips by Vladimir London, a Life Drawing Academy tutor.
In the Life Drawing Academy course, students receive unlimited personal tutoring and make 100 drawing tasks. Alex, asked how to draw plants.
There are different ways of drawing flowers, leaves and greenery and they would depend on a creative task you have in mind. If you want to make a very accurate drawing that shows every feature of a plant, then attention to detail is the key. This approach is good for hyper-realistic botanical illustrations. On another hand, you may want to give an impression rather than a detailed description. You have an artistic license to omit some details and even exaggerate certain features. Counting every leaf is not necessary. Also, If you feel that your artwork would benefit from a bit different shape of the plant, making it a bit taller, for example, you can do it as well.
For this task, you can make a well-rendered drawing of a few frontal leaves and diffuse in the aerial perspective the background foliage. How much to diffuse is your creative approach. Plants are not portraits, no one will argue that you did not depicted every single leaf. As with any object, first draw big masses, the overall shape of the plant without any details. Measure its height-to-width ratio and outline with virtual lines its outer boundaries. Then, specify some smaller volumes - for example, a group of several leaves. Afterwards, go for smaller details, like individual leaves and their features. This way, you can get the overall shape from the beginning and can decide how detailed your drawing should be as you go.
To learn good drawing techniques, enroll in the Life Drawing Academy course:
Online Course
A self-study, self-paced course for you to learn fundamental methods of classical drawing and improve life drawing skills by watching video lessons and doing assignments
- Unlimited access to 52 life drawing video lessons
- Lifetime membership without deadlines
- Unlimited support from the Academy tutors
- Constructive critique of your artworks
- Member access to the Academy's Art community
- Place in the Academy's Students Gallery
- Exclusive members-only newsletter and bonuses
- Life Drawing Academy Diploma of Excellence in your name
One-time payment - Lifetime membership
$297 USD
Personal Tutoring Online + Online Course
The ultimate choice if you who would like to receive personal, one-to-one tutoring from the Academy teachers, which is custom-tailored to your skills and needs
- Everything in Online Course, plus:
- Dedicated team of art tutors
- Assessment of your current level of drawing skills
- Personalized curriculum tailored to your skills and goals
- Up to 100 drawing tasks with by-task assessment
- Unlimited one-to-one personal coaching with detailed per-task instructions and feedback
- Artwork critiques and results-oriented guidance
One-time payment - Lifetime membership
$997 USD
