Botanical Drawing for Beginners: How to Draw Simple Tropical Leaves

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Sharon Stevens and I am an artist and author specializing in watercolor illustration and modern calligraphy. In this class, we are going to focus on drawing fun and unique leaves in a simple way. I'll be taking you through my approach for simplifying a subject so that you can turn your leaves into either quick doodles or more delicate detailed drawings. I'll start by giving you some tips for finding both inspiration for your drawings and also for finding references so you can get to know your subjects. We will then focus on drawing some of the most popular leaves and some of my favorites including Eucalyptus ginko and big tropical leaves like Monstera and banana leaves. We'll start from the simplest of leaves and work our way up to leaves that are a little more complicated. I will show you how to transform your basic doodles into something a bit more delicate and detailed, so that you have the freedom and flexibility to establish your own preferred style or to adapt your drawings to whatever you want to use them for. We will then look at fun ways to use them in our everyday life, Perhaps using them to decorate our journals or to make simple gift tags for friends and family. This class is aimed at anyone who wants to learn how to draw leaves in a simple, fun way. You do not need to have any experience at drawing or doodling. The only things you need to take this class are a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. The whole class is in real time, so you can draw right along with me. I believe in the incredible benefit of using art for joy and relaxation. My aim is to show you how creativity can be a simple, relaxing, and joyful part of your life as well. One of my biggest inspirations for art is nature and botanical classes have been my most requested over the last few years. I hope this class will give you the inspiration and tools you need to create simple and beautiful drawings regularly. You may have seen my first botanical doodling class where we covered simple basic leaves. This class is an extension to that using more specific subjects. Okay, I'm ready to draw some leaves. Are you? I hope so. Grab your pen and paper and let's get started. 2. Supplies: As I mentioned in the introduction for your supplies, you really only need a pen or pencil and some paper to be able to follow along with this class, you can still easily get started with whatever you already have at home. In this video, I'll go through some of my favorite supplies. And in the resource section of the class, you will be able to find a recommended supplies list with links for paper. You can use any paper that you have. Some printing paper will be absolutely fine. I like to use sketchbooks for doodling and drawing. These don't need to be fancy. You can get really cheap sketchbooks from your local arts and crafts stores or even from the supermarket sketchbook that I'll be mostly using in this class is this Square White of Brighton Sketchbook. Nothing Fancy. It's an affordable sketchbook from my local art shop. I like it because of the size that it's a square. The paper is 150 GSM cartridge paper. It's a decent thickness for using pen width. Most normal sketchbooks will probably be anywhere 80-200 GSM in weight. I like to choose ones that are on the thicker side so the pen doesn't show through on the other side of the paper too much. So that I can use both sides of the paper if I want to. I also like to use sketchbooks that have a little bit of texture. This mini pocket sketchbook is a watercolor moleskin sketchbook and it's 200 GSM, slightly thicker than my a white sketchbook. With this, I have the option of adding a little bit of water color to it if I want to. It's a great size to carry around with you for some doodling. When you're out and about, you can just pop it in your bag. I'll also draw and doodle in my bullet journal and I'll be showing you an example of some projects later on in this. My bullet journal is by Scribble and Dot. There are so many different journal companies these days. Some are easier to find than others depending on where you're based. I like this one because the pages have grid dots, which can help give you some guidance for drawing and planning your compositions and layouts. The paper is also thicker than some other journals, and it's 160 GSM. If you're looking for a bullet journal, keep an eye out for that thickness when buying, especially if you want to use pens for drawing and not have them show through the other side. Don't worry about brands or having anything fancy. Start with whatever paper you have and then if you want to buy a sketchbook, just keep an eye on the weight of the paper within it so it's suitable for what you'll be using it with. As for pens and pencils, my preference is to use fine liner pens like the Unable and Pigma Micron pens, which have a nice flow and vary in thickness. However, if I only have a pencil or a biro nearby, then I will doodle with those. Sometimes I'll start my drawings off with a pencil sketch. And I like to use a mechanical pencil with HB lead as they keep my pencil lines nice and fine. In this class, I'll be using a row ring tick mechanical pencil. And you can get these in three different sizes. And the size that I'm using is a 0.7 millimeter which is the thickest. Hopefully you'll be able to see the sketches that I'll be doing on camera in this class. I'll mainly be using three pens. The first is a unable fine liner pen, and this is a unable pen and it's a micro pen. You can get this in a fine version which is slightly thicker. I like to use this for slightly bolder doodles or drawings in each leaf drawing video. In this class we are going to be drawing two versions and I'll be using this for the simpler doodle, it's slightly bolder. I'll also be using a couple of Pigma micron pens for the more detailed versions of the leaves come in a range of sizes and you can buy them in a set. I use these all of the time, and if you enjoy drawing with pens, then I recommend getting a pack of these. In this class, I'll be using the size two and the size 005. I'll use the two for the outlines or any areas that I want to be slightly bolder as it's a thicker pen, I'll use the size 005 for any details and any finer areas that I want to be really fine. I like to use two pens because it gives an extra bit of contrast to my drawings, which makes them look a little more interesting and allows me to emphasize certain areas. You may notice during the class that these pens look a little bit different when I'm using them. That's just because the first pens I started using were these pig and micron pens in this color. But they actually ran out and slowly started using a new set. Which are these black ones? They're exactly the same. This is just a special addition, which is why the casing is a different color. All of these pens are waterproof, which is great. If you love water color like I do, you can add and paint your drawings as well. These are the pens that I recommend. But like I said, if you only have a pencil, then there is no reason why you can't just use that instead, especially if you're quite need to drawing and just want to practice in the project ideas video. Later on in the class, I'll be showing you some examples of fun projects with these leaves. In these, I've used a few more supplies in some of them for some of my projects and drawings, especially in my sketchbook and journal, I've added some shading using a gray pen. I've used my tomb jewel brush pen, and I've also used my tombos pen, which are both in gray and grep for adding a bit of shading. I'll also show you some examples of gift tags I've made. For these, I tend to use mixed media card or watercolor paper, which are both fairly thick paper for punching the holes in the gift tag. I like to use these hole punches. This one is a rapes single holt punch, which makes a hole of six millimeter diameter. It's good for larger tags or if you've got a larger ribbon to put through it. I also use this fiscal hole punch, which make smaller holes of 3 millimeters, which works well for the smaller gift tags. And if you're using twine instead of ribbon, I've added links for both of those if you want to check them out in the supplies document for the rectangular gift tags, again, that I'll be showing you later on. I draw them out and cut them out myself using scissors or a metal ruler and a craft knife for the cards. I've used pre cut templates which I've ordered from a paper shop. Okay, so that's all now for supplies. In the next video, I'll give you a quick overview of the project for this class. 3. Your Project: Your project in this class is to draw some leaves by following the steps I use to approach my subjects. I hope your confidence will build as we progress through the class and practice the seven different types of leaves that I show you how to draw. We'll be practicing two different versions of each leaf so that you can experiment with different styles and learn how to create simple quick doodles plus more detailed versions of the same subject. Hopefully this will give you some confidence in going away and thinking more about your preferred style of drawing. Once we have practiced these leaves, you can then apply them to a variety of different projects of your choice. Later in the class, I'm going to be giving you some examples of ideas for how you can use them. With lots of tips from layouts in your sketchbook to journal layouts and gift tags and cards. In this section, we'll be covering a little bit about composition and layout. And I hope you'll be inspired to trance and different designs of your own. Whether you stick to drawing the individual leaves, which is fun and relaxing in itself, or you wish to experiment with different designs and projects. I would love to see your work and hear about how you found the class and which type of style you preferred, The very simple doodles or the more detailed versions of the leaves. To share your work, just head to the Projects and Resources tab and click Create a Project. You can upload your image and add a project title and description. This is a great place to add any comments you have about your drawings or the class in general, as other students will be able to see this and I'll be able to feedback on these projects as well. In the next video, we'll cover a few drawing tips before we move on to drawing each of the individual leaves. 4. Drawing Tips: In this video, I wanted to cover some basic drawing tips that may help you when you are approaching your leaves. But the principles also apply to any subject that you want to doodle or draw. We'll start right at the beginning. Say we have something specific in mind of what we want to draw. We need to know what it looks like, we need something to refer to. You may need to use multiple references if you're working from photos, so that you can see the subject from different angles and get to know its characteristics and how it bends or moves. Especially if you want to draw it from different angles. The more detailed or realistic you want to be, the more references you may need. I like to work from multiple sources because it means I have more freedom to choose which details I include or leave out. And it also means I can create something more unique. Ideally, when I can, I'll use references from real life. So I like to go for lots of walks or visit garden centers or florists. For both inspiration and for references. You can do some research to find out what places near you have the plants that you're looking for. For example, if you wanted tropical plants, you can then either take a sketchbook and pencil and do lots of quick sketches whilst you're there or take some photos. When you're taking photos, it's a great idea to take photos from different angles and maybe a video as well, so that you'll be able to perceive the plant better when you're back home with just the two D images. Paying attention to how they move and twist. Try and take a good head on shot so that you can clearly see the shape as well. You can also make some notes about the details and textures that they have or that you would want to try and recreate when you're at home. You can save all these photos to an inspiration album on your phone to refer back to so they don't get lost amongst your other daily photos. There are also lots of great books out there, gardening books or reference books that have images in. I love to find out interesting facts about whatever I'm drawing or painting. Obviously, you have to be mindful of copyright issues when you're using other people's photos or artwork as references. Though, do keep that in mind. Of course, the Internet is a brilliant source of information. You can create a board on Pinterest and collect images that inspire you. Or you can look at sites like Unsplash. Again, look at multiple photos. You can understand the colors and textures and structure of the subject. You can also use the Internet to search for information about your subject so that you can understand it better. Once you've got to know your subject, you may not need to use a reference, especially when doodling and when the subject is pretty simple. The first feature of our subject that we want to identify is the oval shape or mass of the subject. This forms the basis of your drawing, giving you a guide for where to work on your page. Leaves are a great starting point for observational drawing because they're pretty simple compared to a lot of other subjects. Here are some examples of different leaves and they're oval shape. The oval shape of the ca, palm leaf is an oval shape, whereas the oval shape of the realia leaf is a circle. When you're first looking at these leaves, you might not think that's a circle, that's an oval. But drawing these out first in pencil really helps to give you a good guide for where to draw. We'll be using these later on in the class. So you'll see drawing these guides first in pencil does make it quite a lot easier to draw the rest of the leaf when you're using a pencil. It allows you to refine your shape or outlines to get them just to how you want them to be. There's no rush. You can take as much time as you need. If it doesn't feel quite right, just keep going back to your references and that oval shape as guidance. Once we have our guideline for our subject, we can start looking at our references for the distinguishing features. These are the main features that make it recognizable. Knowing these main distinguishing features of your subject is really helpful for whatever level of drawing you're doing. Whether it's a simple outline or doodle or something more realistic, it's going to help make whatever it is look much more recognizable. Here are a few examples of references of a monstera leaf. The bottom left is a photo I took myself and saved on my phone. The bottom right is from a nature reference book I have which is great for finding inspiration from. The other three are images I found on the Internet from unsplash or Pexels website. Having these multiple references just allows us to see a variety images of this leaf. If I only had my own reference photo, that one at the bottom left, then I'd be working from a more mature leaf with lots of those slits and holes. But I can see easy from some of the others that it's not always like that. And we can simplify it much more if we want to. With this Monstera. As an example, let's look at the distinguishing features. The overall shape of the Monstera leaf is a heart shape. That's the first thing we need to include. That will be the starting point, which we'll sketch out in pencil. The next distinguishing features we can see is that it has a fairly thick vein running through the center. Then it has slits and small holes that are randomly dotted about. We can see that the slits are all angled towards the dip of the heart shape where the leaf joins the stem, and the holes are generally next to the center vein. For a simple doodle, that may be as much information as we need to keep it really minimal, but this will definitely still be enough to make it recognizable. When we're drawing, we have the freedom to choose what we include and what we leave out and what style we draw in. There are so many ways that we can draw the same thing. So I hope this class will start to give you some ideas for how you can make subtle tweaks and changes to your drawing to make it look quite different. Here you can see the simple doodle or the monstera on the left that we just looked at, a slightly more detailed, realistic version on the right. A lot of the features are the same for both of these leaves, but I made some simple changes to the one on the right, like using a finer pen to give it a more delicate look and adding shading. Little things like using organic curves with wobbly lines instead of simple curves can make a big difference. And change a simplistic doodle shape to a more realistic one. Paying attention to how you do the points of the leaves can also make a difference. So you can see the one on the right is much pointier. We'll be looking at this more within the class as we do two versions of each leaf, a really simple version and a slightly more detailed version. With these added details like the shading, I hope these tips have been helpful. We're now going to apply them as we work through drawing the leaves in the class. The first leaf in the next video that we're going to draw is the banana leaf. 5. Banana Leaves: The banana leaf is one of my favorite leaves to doodle. It's so simple yet so unique in its shape as well. I'm starting with this one, as I think it is one of the simplest to draw. This is a tropical leaf, so they grow really large with this long paddle shape. They have a prominent center vein down the middle, and then they can also split as well. They also have lots of finer veins on the leaves. We have the choice to add those in if we want to. Here are two examples of simple drawings for these. A very basic outline on the left with no splits. Then on the right, I added in the split using simple V shapes and also all the veins as well. Before we start, I just wanted to show you a couple more examples from my sketch books and my journal for how I've used these banana leaves as decorations or just when I'm doodling to give you a bit more inspiration because I really do enjoy drawing these ones. Starting with my pencil, I'm going to start by sketching out that rough outline. I'll start with that center bone. This is going to be a curved line. Then I usually start my banana leaves at the top with a flat top that starts being a bit rounded and then bring it down and then in, and then do the same on the other side, it's quite rounded. There aren't any sharp edges. Sharp corners, But it's got this flat bit to the top. It tapers in, and it's almost got a little bit of a flat bit here as well. That's enough with my pen, so I'm going to move on to my Uniball pen. Now, straight into the pen for this, I'm going to start with that center Vin, I'll just follow that line down. Then starting from the top, I'm going to curve round. Then I'm going to add in a V shape for the first split to carry on down. You can add these in wherever you like, however many you like, or just a smaller one here. Then I'm going to do one more then just do the same on the other side. Those splits don't have to mirror each other. It's really as simple as that for the basic banana leaf doodle. Now let's do another one, slightly more detailed this time. Again, start with that curve line. I'm going to curve it off to the right this time. Then again, draw this out line, this long paddle shape. You can alternate the shape a little bit so you can see this has come out a little bit more. And then you can make it a little bit wavier. You can have a play around with these for this, because I want it to be a bit more delicate. Going to my size to micron pen, I'm going to start with the vein again and draw the first line all the way down. Starting from about an inch or shorter than an inch down, I'm going to start widening this center vein. Then I'm not making it too wide. I'm going to just take that all the way down to the bottom. And then I'm going to do the same with these splits as I did on the other one. And you can make some bigger V, some shorter. Can never play around and do the same on the other side. Don't worry about sticking to that pencil outline. It's just there as a rough guide for you. Then you can just concentrate on what you're doing in the detail rather than worrying about getting the shape right. Okay, now I'm going to my 005 micron pen to draw the veins on either side of this leaf. These are going to be really fine lines quite close together. And this is the really relaxing part of these doodles, the repetitive lines. So just take your time. There's no need to rush whenever there's a split, I'll just start from the edge of that split and then bring it in so you can just concentrate on your breath whilst you're doing this. Making sure you're nice and relaxed. Your shoulders are loose, they're not tense. And then we can just do the same on the other side. What I like about these banana leaves is that you don't have to include these veins. It's really recognizable on its own, the split, by the shape of it. As you've seen in some of my sketchbook doodles that I showed you earlier, it's quite nice to alternate them, have some with the veins, and keep some P that just provides a really nice contrast in your layout. If you wanted to add even more detail to this one, you could add some shading down the vein. If you start on one side of the center vein, you could just do some frick lines. This would just add a bit more depth to the side of that vein. I'm doing these at slightly different lengths, so it doesn't look too uniform, but they are fine. I'm still using my finest pen. They're quite subtle, but they'll just add a nice subtle shading effect. But again, this is just one option that you can include or not include. Okay, so now we can just erase those pencil lines and we have our banana leaves. In the next video, we'll move on to drawing the ginko leaf. 6. Ginkgo Leaves: The ginko leaf is another favorite leaf of mine to draw as again, it's so simple, yet unique in its shape. These leaves are semicircle with a fan shape. Top edge of the leaf has this lovely, organic, undulating edge. They usually have a dip in the center creating two lobes within the leaf. They have a fine stalk, then delicate veins along the leaf, which we can choose to include or not. Here are two examples, a very simple doodle of just the outline on the left capturing those first three main features, it's really recognizable. Then a slightly more detailed, delicate drawing on the right which includes the veins. These lines can be really relaxing to draw as they are so repetitive. Just like with the banana leaf, I always enjoy adding them in. Okay, as a way, starting with the pencil again, we're going to start by sketching out a semicircle for the main leaf. This is just going to be a rough guide for us, then this can curve round and then come up slightly. I'll do the same on the other side to bring in quite close to each other because this stalk is really quite fine. This is going to curve round ever so slightly. Okay, that's just our rough guide. If you need to just use your rubber and your pencil to just tweak it until you're happy with it. Then I'm going to go to my Uniball pen. I'm going to start at the top center, just going straight above this stalk. And I'm going to do this dip first, start with a slight curve, dip down, quite narrow, and then bring it back up. It's so U shape with curves either side. Then I'm going to follow this guide round. I'm going to make this edge nice and wavy and then curve it round and then bring it up, curve it round to the stalk. I'll just do the same on the other side. Again, you can see with this undulating edge, it's not completely uniform. These waves, like the dips, are not the same. Constantly along, you've got some larger bits and some smaller bits. Then this bottom edge is a lot smoother. Then just bring this down to the stalk is nice and thin. That's it for our basic doodle of the ginko leaf. We'll just keep it really simple with just the outline, but it's still really recognizable and interesting. Now we can do another ginko leaf. This one will be a little more detailed. I'm going to start with the pencil as before, but this time we'll be adding in those veins and some shading. Again, using my pencil, I'm going to curve this one slightly off to the right and start with that semicircle shape. I'm making sure these corners are slightly curved and then it comes upwards a little and then adding in that stalk. Okay, I'm going to switch to my zero to pigma micron pen. Now for the outline, I'm going to start with this dip at the top first in the middle. Then I'm going to work on these edges here. I'm going to make them a little more organic than these, a little less regular. I'm just going to go up and down some bigger waves than others. Curve that round, This bottom edge is still smooth, bringing it up, curving this down. And then bringing it down to the stalk. Now I'm going to do the other side again. Those nice organic, undulating edges. Some bigger, some smaller. And then curving it round at this corner, making this nice and smooth. And then bringing it to the stalk. Even by dropping down the pen from the ible to this 02, it's already given the leaf a bit more of a delicate look. You don't need to worry about these leaves being completely symmetrical. Remember they are leaves and organic shapes. If they happen to be a bit lop sided, it will just make them look more natural. You can see this bit here is not exactly symmetrical. This comes up more, but I'm not worried about that for the veins I'm going to switch to my 005 pen. For these veins I like to start in the center and then divide the leaf up. I find this makes easier to keep yourself on track, as if you started from one side and just work your way to the other. You might find that the lines have started to go in a certain direction. These points, these markings will just make areas smaller and easier to manage. Starting in the center, I'm just going to draw a line down to the stalk. Then I'm going to go to this middle point and do another line and curve it round, finishing in the same place. I'll do the same on this side, halfway through curving this round. Then I'm going to break up each of these as well. Center here, curving it round in the middle, here, in the middle here, and here as well. Now that we have these initial lines, these guiding points, we can fill in the rest of the veins. I'm just going to start on this left. I'm just following that outside edge. The goal is to slowly make this parallel to the next one over here. And as these lines get closer to the center, they will merge together, which is fine. I'm going to turn my page around now to make it easier. Like the veins of the banana leaf, this part can be really relaxing. If you don't try and rush it, it's a great time to check in with your posture and your breath. Make sure your shoulders aren't tense, so just loosen them up and take a few slower, deeper breaths. And enjoy the calming process of repeating these lines, Okay, So now we have our veins going to roughly color this stalk in. I'm not going to make it a block, just doing short lines, It's a scratchy finish. Then I'm just going to add some flicky lines up from this center point. Okay, so I'm happy with that shading now. Once you're happy you can finish. So now we've finished both of these, and we're confident that our pen is dry, so it won't. We can raise our pencil lines. I hope you've enjoyed drawing this ginko leaf. It's such a unique leaf that can look beautiful within different projects. Which I'll be showing you some examples of later in the class when we move on to project ideas. But for now we're going to move on to the next leaf, which is the Monstera. 7. Monstera part 1: The Monstera leaf is probably one of the most recognizable tropical leaves. It has large, glossy, dark green heart shaped leaves. The young baby leaves are smaller and unbroken. But as the leaf gets older and a lot bigger, it develops these splits and holes which make it so recognizable. These apparently help the leaves withstand heavy wind and rain. The three main distinguishing features that we want to capture in our drawings, whatever style we use are going to be its heart shape, its center vein, and the splits and holes within the leaf. As I showed you earlier in the tips video, here are two examples of simple drawings for this monstera. One very basic doodle on the left and another a bit more detailed on the right. In this video, we'll be drawing both of these so that you can practice the different styles and levels of details. Starting with my pencil, I'm going to sketch out the outline, which as we know is a heart shape. The dip is going to be at the top. And you can do this either way round for the Monstera, but we'll start it at the top on this one we're going to come out, curve it round, and then bring it back in from the top. Bring it out curved, bring it back in again. I'm now going to switch to my unibalens. You can clearly see what I'm doing, but you may wish to stick with the pencil at this point and then go over in pen shortly. I'm going to start with this dip at the curve round. I'm going to add in three splits on each side, starting at the top. I'm not going to make this dip come into a point. I'm just going to soften it slightly so I'm going to come up and then go up and then bring this round. When I get to it back here, I'm going to stop. This is going to be the first split. I'm going to bring this in curve round and as it goes back towards this guideline is going to be a curve. I'm going to bring that down. This, this section comes to a point. It curves round, and this top bit is a curve. We'll do another split here. Again, this is going to be a point, going to bring it in, curve it round, bring it back up so it's a little bit closer then bring it back down. Can do this one more time. I'm going to make this one a little bit smaller. Going inwards, curving it round, curving it upwards again, back to that guideline, and then bringing it down to that bottom point of the heart shape. Now we can do this on the other side. Just remember that that point here is a bit softened. I'm just bringing it round. It's not a sharp corner. I'm going to curve this round and then stop about here at the top. Curve this up, bring this up closer to this top area and then curve round. It meets the edge of that heart guide line and then bring it down. This is going to be a point again. I'm going up curving it and then curving it, background as it meets that outer guideline that's two more splits on this side. We'll do another small one like this. Again, part is going to be a point just like these. I'm going to go up curved and back out curving to meet that bottom point. Now we can add in a central vein, and that's going to start at the top and it's going to come all the way down to the bottom. You'll see I haven't done mine in a completely straight line. It's got a slight wave to it which just adds a little bit of natural ness to the leaf. Finally, for this simpler doodle, we can just add in a few little holes. I'm going to do this as oval shapes. You can do these different sizes. Slightly bigger one here, and then I'm going to do a small one over here. Okay, so that's the simplest one finished. If you've done yours in pencil, you can pause the video now and just go over these parts in pen. 8. Monstera part 2: For the second Monstera leaf, we're going to start in exactly the same way by sketching out that heart shape as a guide, then we're going to use our finer pens and make these lines slightly more natural and organic, and then just add some more details in to make it look a bit more delicate and realistic. I'm going to have this one coming slightly off to the right, whereas this is slanted to the left. This vein will go to the right. We're going to start of the dip and then sketch this round into that heart shape. It's making this a little bit narrower. Okay, so that's just my outline, that's very rough, but it just gives me a guide. So I'm going to switch to my 02 now. Again, feel free to continue in pencil at this point if you feel more comfortable. We're going to do three splits on each side as before, but as I said, these lines are going to be slightly more organic. We're going to start this top dip again, flattening this a little bit. Going to come up. Whereas this line is a smooth curve, we can flatten it off and then curve it round. It's not as smooth. These points, I'm going to make even point yet I'm going to come straight up. They're a bit more finer, bit more delicate. And then I'm going to bring this in again. It's not going to be as fluid a curve as this, it's going to be a little bit more natural. I'm bringing it round. Then going back to the outer edge, you can see it's not as curved again. For the second split, I'm going to go up to keep this nice and fine, curve it round, bring it back up, and then bring this down. You can see that these lines are a little bit more organic, a little bit more wonky. You can be a bit freer with the pen with this one. For the final split, again, we'll make this bit smaller. I'm going to go up, curve this, then bring it back in, and then bring this down to the point you can see I've rounded this off a little bit rather than go in. Okay, that's our left side. Let's do the same with the other side. I'm going to go a bit sharper, bring it round, flatten it off a bit, then come up with this point, and then bring it in and then go, rather than go up like these, bring this downwards. Now we're at the second split. I'm going to get up and in again, making these a bit more organic. Bringing it down to the top of the next split, curving this up, I'm going to make this a little bit bigger, a bit more circular, and then bring this down to that point. You can see this one isn't as symmetrical as this one. Bit more natural, the lines aren't as smooth. Now we can do this center vein again. I'm going to start from the top and I'm going to bring this all the way down with a slight curve to it. I'm going to draw another line very close to it, all the way down to about here where it will join. This is just going to add some thickness to this vein. I'm joining it in there. Okay, now we can add in the holes. I'm going to add in a larger one here, another fairly large one here, and a smaller one up here. Now we can add in some veins for each of these segments. These are going to follow the curve of that area. Starting from the middle. I'm going to bring that up and then flick it off. It doesn't go all the way to the end, but it's got a tapered edge. It's just using the pen and lifting it and dragging it quickly. For this, I don't want to go straight across for any of these. I'm starting slightly lower down, bringing up, and then curving it round. This is just going to show the shape of the leaf again, finishing off with a little flick at the end, doing the same here. And then finally a small one there. I'm going to do the same on the other side. These don't have to start at the same point as the one on the other side. This is going to start a bit higher. If you find that you're going into one of these holes, just stop and then continue on the other side. This will be the case here. I'm going to just draw this in and then I'm going to follow it over. I'm not touching the pen, but just so I know where the line needs to go and then flick out the other side. Okay, now that we have our main shape, I'm going to switch to my final 005 and add some shading. I'm going to start at the edges, particularly at these points, and I'm just going to add flicky lines upwards to make them darker. Not too many, just a few on each one. I'm also going to do the same at this tip on either side, and the corners on the other side as well. Okay, Now from the center vein on either side, I'm going to do the same shading all the way down, leaving the gap in between these lines white. This shading is just going to give the leaf some depth. For these flicky lines, they're all going to be slightly different lengths, it doesn't look too uniform, so occasionally I'm doing a slightly longer one and then a few small ones and just varying it. Okay. I'm going to do that on the other side now. So I'm just going to turn my page to make it easier. Always do these shading marks in the angle or the leaf. If you think about that center vein and each side of the leaf coming up and out these lines. I'm doing slightly at a slant, going upwards. That's going to help give the leaf more of a shape. On the page without these, it's pretty flat. This one looks a lot flatter, but all the shading that you add, all the lines that you add that go in the flow of the leaf, are just going to give it more shape and make it pop out of the page. The more you practice drawing and looking at leaves, you'll just get to know these lines, which way they should be going. And it will just come much more naturally to you if it's something that you're struggling with. Okay, we've done some shading in the center. And on those tips now, I'm just going to add shading around the edges, particularly where they curve around. I'm just going to do a few lines coming off the edge. These are quite subtle, but they're just going to add some depth. Just have a look. And if there's anywhere particularly along these top bits, I think it works well here. Again, I'm following the curve down. Then you can just see if there's any more shading that you want to add. I'm actually going to make some of these areas a little bit darker. I feel like this center point could do with a bit more shading and making these veins a bit darker, especially towards the center. I'm just going to add a few more in. Going over and then over this vein, the more you go over it, the darker it will become, the more depth you'll give up. It's nice to do this gradually because then you can just keep going until you decide that it's what you want. Rather than jump too far in too quick and not be happy with it, just do the same on the other side, making these veins a little bit darker. And then just adding a little bit more depth, particularly next to that center vein. And adding in some longer strokes of shading around the edges once you're happy. And the penis. Right. We can remove our pencil lines. Okay, now we have our two versions of the mensa leaf. I hope you've enjoyed making both of these. I hope you're starting to understand how easy it is to transform your drawing from a simple doodle to something much more delicate and detailed just by making a few simple tweaks. We've got the same structure here. We start with the same outline, we've got three splits on either side, we've got three holes. But it's just the simple things like adding a bit of depth to the center vein, adding the shading, adding more of these organic lines rather than the solid curves, and it can transform it quite a bit. I love both of these and I would use both of these, and it just depends on what I'm drawing. It's nice to have that in your toolbox, so to speak, to pick and choose what style you want to use for whatever you are doing. In the next video, we're going to be moving on to the Cap Palm. 9. Areca Palm: The Aca palm is different to the leaves we've drawn so far because it has lots of individual leaves coming off of the stem, and these are long and thin. If you wanted to draw a guideline for this, it would start with an oval shape, which would help you decide how long to make each of those leaves. Here are two examples of simple drawings for this Aca palm, which will be drawing in this video. One very basic doodle on the left and another a bit more detailed and delicate on the right using a finer pen and some subtle shading. So we're going to start with the basic version. Starting with my pencil, I'm going to sketch out an oval guide. So this is slightly santed towards the left, because I'll be doing this, curved up slightly to the left. And then the second version slightly towards the right, just like the other drawings we've done so far. We have an oval now take your time and you can use you an eraser just to get that rough guide right, but don't worry too much about it. Then we can draw a aligned and center slightly curved and that's going to come out of this oval, and this is the center stem. At this point, you can continue using your pencil if you feel more comfortable or switch to your pen now, which is what I'm going to do and I'm switching to my uniform pen. Each of these leaves are going to come up diagonally in a V shape from the center, and we're going to have one at the top. We want the one at the top to be probably just a little bit shorter than the ones at the side. We're going to start with this one. I'm starting from this line, it's going to be fairly narrow. I'm going to come up to a point and then bring it back down. We can draw this stem in as well. It's just going to be a single line curved very slightly. Next we're going to do the leaf underneath that's going to come up and it's going to come up roughly to this outer edge of the oval. I'm going to leave a little gap. Bring this up and down. We'll do the same on the other side. Bring it up to that edge and then down. The next one is going to be a slightly less at an angle again leaving a small gap from that top leaf above it and then coming out to that edge. And the same on the other side. Now we can continue working down using this oval as our guide. Just making these leaves almost parallel to this one here, again leaving a gap, going to the edge. I'm going to do all the ones on the left first, and then we'll move over to the right side, 0. Kay? So now I'm going to do the same on the right side, making them Sbt Coal. So starting roughly at the same point and then just going up to the edge of that oval. Okay, so that's all we're going to do for the very simple version. It's simple, especially once you have the guide, it makes it much more easier to make it balanced and pleasing to the eye, which is why I like using these guides. We're going to go back to the pencil now. Draw this oval guide again on the right side. And then we'll draw our second version. This is going to veer slightly off to the right. I'm just going to roughly sketch in that pencil line as well, that stem with the pencil slightly curved to the right. Again, at this point, if you want to carry on using your pencil and then go over it and pen later, that's absolutely fine. I'm going to switch to my pen because that's what I normally do, but also because it will help make it easier for you to see what I'm doing on the camera. The differences we're going to make in this version are we're going to add a few more of these leaves in to make them a little bit more delicate. We're going to add some thin width to the stem to make it look more realistic. We'll add some shading into each of the leaves as well. We're going to do a couple that are overlapping each other just to make it look more natural rather than uniform like this one is. We'll start with the top one, again, coming to a point, keeping it nice and thin, and then bringing it back to a point. Then we'll do this central stem, starting with one line, bringing it all the way down, Then adding thickness, not very much, keeping it fairly thin and delicate, bringing it all the way down parallel and then joining that up. Now we'll start with the leaves on either side, just a short way down, bringing this up to that outer edge of the oval. And then another, then continue down. You can see these are slightly thinner, slightly more delicate than these. Where is the mostly point in pretty much the same direction, you can have slightly more natural. For example, this one is a bit closer at the top. And there's more of a gap here. This one That way a little bit more, just adding that gives it movement, makes it look more natural, like there's a breeze flowing through the leaves. We just keep working our way down using that pencil line as our guide for this next one. I'm drawing in this leaf, and then the next one below it, I want to go underneath this one. I'm going to curve this around. The tip is going to go above this one. I'm following my pen just over the vapor so I can see where it will and then bring it back down. So this top one now is overlapping that one underneath. And then we can continue. Okay, so now let's do the same on the other side. I'm going to turn my page slightly now to make it easier. The next one I'm going to do, coming down a little bit more then the one underneath, I'm going to make it come up. So it's falling underneath that one above. They're crossing over. This one has become quite straight and I want to keep that diagonal. I'm going to move down a bit further and bring it up quite close. You can see with this one I'm going, I'm not starting from a point exactly symmetrical to the ones on the left. Pretty similar, but I'm not being as exact just so it looks less uniform and a bit more natural. Do one more overlapping with this one at the very bottom. This one is going to come up and underneath. Okay, if you did yours in pencil, you can pause the video now and go over all of your leaves in pen. I'm going to switch to my 05 now for the shading. For the shading, I'm just going to do some of those short flicky lines at the bottom and the top of each leaf. This is just going to give it some depth. These are the repetitive details that I love because I find that they're the most relaxing part of it. Once you've done your outline, you can relax a bit more. You don't need to think as much. It's just about filling in these areas. As I always say, it's a good time to check in with your posture, your breathing. Make sure you're nice and relax. Where the leaves come underneath. I didn't do it with this one, but we can go back to that. Just going to add an extra bit of shading where it sits underneath here. And that's just going to emphasize that it is separate and distinguish it from the leaf above. So again, I'm adding that shading in just where it sits underneath that leaf. I'll go back and do the same on this one. Okay. The final bit of shading I want to do is just to the stem just to make it stand out. Just adding in some lines. I'm not making it so I don't want it to be too bold. I'm just lightly coloring it in lots of small lines. Okay. Once you're finished and you're happy, we can remove our pencil lines again. I hope this shows you how just making those subtle differences can really transform your leaf from something really quite simple and bolder to something more delicate and natural. I hope at this point you're getting to know what you like and starting to think about your own style, but also for ways that you can use each of these. In the next video, we're going to be moving on to the leaf. 10. Aralia: I love the realia leaf because it always looks so healthy and vibrant. It's different to the other leaves we've drawn so far because it has these deep lobes and as a whole it forms a circular shape. It usually has seven to nine lobes with veins running through each one. With leaves like this, I like to come up with a method to approach it. Otherwise, I feel like it can easily be harder than it needs to be. In this video, we'll start with a simple version focusing on that distinctive shape and those deep lobes, and then we'll add in the veins and shading in the more detailed version. For the simplest version, let's start by sketching out circle, which as to be seen is the oval shape that the leaf sits inside. Okay, once you have your larger circle, about two thirds of the way down, we can sketch a smaller circle. We can put a.in the center of this one. This is going to be where the stalk reaches the base of the leaf. At this point, we can just draw a slightly curved line coming out of those circles. We're going to draw seven leaf sections, which means there will be six of these lobes that come inwards. First, let's draw the veins in which sit in the center of each leaf section. We'll have one that comes all the way to the top of that outer circle. We'll do the two bottom ones next. And these are going to be slightly shorter. They're not going to come all the way to this outer circle. About there, about halfway between the smaller circle and the bigger one. We'll do that on the other side as well. That gives us three leaves. If each of these veins represents a leaf, we want two more on either side. Try and do these. Even one going up and then one in the middle, and these ones will reach the outer circle. We'll do this on the other side as well. One going up there and then one in the middle. Okay, I'm going to switch to my pen at this point, my Uniball, so you can clearly see what I'm doing. But do feel free to continue with your pencil and then go over it with your pen when you're ready. In between each of these veins, I'm going to draw a C curve. This is going to be the innermost part of each of those lobes. It's like a marker point for us. You can see these are all resting on that smaller circle. You should have six of these, each within those lines, those veins with each of the leaves, they are going to be smooth towards the center. And then they're going to have a undulating edge coming to a soft point when it reaches the top of the vein. We'll start from the base for this bottom leaf, it's going to come down that's smooth, then as it goes in towards this top bit, it's going to be undulating. Then it's going to curve round and meet the top of this curve. Starting at the bottom of this curve. Now this is the bottom of this section. We'll bring this up going outwards a little bit. Then as we go in, we're going to undulate this. Coming up to that top point of the vein, undulating again as we come bring it round. And then join it up with this one starting from here. This is going to come all the way round to the top of that vein, bringing it round, meeting here, starting with a slight curve, then that undulating edge as you bring it meeting to the top of that vein, undulating edge all the way around, bringing it back in, becoming smoother, meeting that curve, extending this one undulating edge, bringing it up, undulating edge, bringing it round, smoother, and joining up. Now we've got four leaves, four leaf sections rather. Okay, bring this up, undulating, curving it round, draining the top of that vein, bringing it back round, bringing it back in slightly smoother, so undulating, reaching the, undulating as it comes round and then smooth. Then for this bottom one, remember these two are slightly shorter. I'm starting from the base, bringing this undulating and coming round. Okay, I'm going to bring the stalk down. Now, because of the way this bottom one is sitting. I'm going to adjust where the stalk is. I'm not going to follow that pencil line. I've moved it slightly over to the right. And then I'm just going to draw in these veins. Okay, so now we can move on to the second version where we are going to add more detail, some more veins and make it look much more realistic and delicate. We'll start again with this circle, then again with the smaller circle, about two thirds of the way down with a.in the center for where that base will be. Let's sketch in those veins coming up from that center point up to the top. Then the lower ones which don't quite meet this outer circle. And then adding two more in here, and adding in two more in on the other side as well. And then just sketching out where that stem is going to come down to that stalk. Okay, I'm going to switch to my size 02, but again, you can continue with your pencil. We'll start with those curves in between each of the veins, then we're going to do the outline in a very similar way as we did before. Starting just a bit lower than the center point for the base, bringing it down nice and smooth. Then those undulating lines up to the tip, bringing it round to meet that first curve, bringing this out, and then those undulating edges. So we'll do this all the way around for this bottom one. Start from the center again, bringing it down, and then in, and then meeting that curve, we've got our outline. Now we'll be drawing in the veins again, but this time we're going to be giving them a little more width. I'm just going to draw a small circle at the base. And all of the veins are going to meet that. We'll start with a line from this bottom one. Bring it in that small circle, just to the edge. Then we're going to add some width to this vean, again, that's going to be touching that small circle. From where this one finished, we're going to bring the line up to this vein here. Then bring this down again, touching that circle. And from where this finished, we'll start this vein. And then drawing another one next to it, coming back down to that circle, starting from where this one finished, we'll bring it up to this next vein and adding another line next to it again, starting where this one finished, bring it up, then adding another line, keeping it nice and narrow. And then joining this to this vein. Then this final vein at the bottom. Then we can just connect these two low veins to the bottom of that base. We've got a small circle in the center. Now we can draw in the stem following this line, roughly down unless you want to adjust it, and then adding another one next to it to give it a little bit of width. I'm going to go along each of these veins and add some smaller veins now just with flicky curved lines. And then do the same on the other side of the main vein. We can do that for each of them. Okay, once you've done your veins, you can switch to your smaller 005. Start by adding some shading in now, particularly to the top of the stem coloring that in a little bit that's going to really push it back, give it some depth. And then I'm just going to bring it down, coloring it in a bit more lighter. Then I'm going to add some shading in the vs, in between these veins, just flicking up. And then if we want to add a little bit more shading, we can do so with some smaller flicky lines along the veins, along the tops of each of these leaves. So these are just lots of small flicky fine lines next to each other. The more you have, the darker it will be. Just always try and keep them in the flow of the shape of the leaf to help give it that shape. These are always parallel with those veins at a diagonal, so just do this leaf and then the final one at the bottom. Okay, Once you're happy with your shading and your pens dry, then we can erase all our pencil lines again, starting from the same point, the same shape, and same outline. We can create two quite different end results just by tweaking some of the processes and adding a few more details. I hope you've enjoyed drawing these two. In the next video, we'll be drawing the fan Palm. 11. Fan Palm: The fan palm, just like the ca palm, has numerous, long, thin leaves, but these leaves fan out from a center point. The oval shape is circular. Here are two examples of simple drawings for this palm, which will be drawing in this video. One quite simple drawing on the left and another a bit more detailed and delicate on the right using a finer pen, some subtle shading, and you'll see that it actually has more leaves as well. The one on the left, which has less leaves is a lot more simplistic. I find that this fan palm is a bit trickier than it looks. I'll show you how I sketch some extra guides to make the leaves even all the way around. As always, we're going to start with the simplest version and I'm going to start by sketching out a circle guide with my pencil, I'm going to sketch another circle, quite a bit smaller, about two thirds of the way down with a.in the center. This is where all the leaves will meet the stalk. We can draw a line for that stalk in. Now for this simpler version, we're going to be drawing 12 leaves. We're first going to use our pencil to mark where they're each going to start. The leaves don't go all the way around the circle. They start from about here. Either side. We can just draw a line as a marker. Now we've got those two lines. We can draw a line up the center as well, that can reach the edge of that smaller circle. Now you should have three lines if you're ignoring this stem. We're now going to add a line halfway in between each of these. One on the left and one on the right. Then we're going to add two more lines in each gap. Again, ignoring this bottom area where there are no leaves, we're going to add one line there and one line there. And then dividing this one up as well, adding two in here, one here, and one there. Adding two in here, 12.2. In here, 12, okay? Now, ignoring again this stem, you should have 13 lines. 12345678, 910-11-1213, That's going to give us 12 leaves because there will be touching at this point. Each of these lines represents an edge of a leaf. And these are going to guide us to the width of each leaf and the direction of each leaf. Each gap is a leaf. If that makes sense, it will become clearer. Again, you can continue using your pencil now to draw each leaf if you feel more comfortable or you can switch to your pen, and I'm going to be using my Uniball. Start with the first leaf. All of these are going to come out to that center circle, starting from the center. Using this first line, I'm going to draw the outer edge of the first leaf. I'm going to bring it back in, shall start from the center, following this next line and connecting it. The next leaf is going to share this part of the line, which is inside the smaller circle. We can start from that edge of the smaller circle, bring it up, then using the next line, I'm going to go over that. Then I'm going to bring it up to a point and connect it at that outer edge. Again, this next leaf is sharing this line. I'm going to bring it up, then bring it back down. That falls into this line. The next leaf is going to start back here and then coming back to that line. Doing this all the way around within this small circle, the leaves are touching each other. Don't worry if it's not precise. You can see this has a bit of a dip. It comes in further, it doesn't matter if Not perfect. We're not after perfection. But hopefully these guides will just help you and make it a lot easier to get a nice balanced leaf. I'm just going to rotate my page now, the final one, okay? So now you should have 12 leaves. 123, 456-789-1011 12, okay? I'm just going to draw a simple line for this stalk. And we're going to keep it as simple as that for this first one. So for the next version, we're going to do 24 leaves This time, make it a bit more delicate and detailed, but we're going to use the same method. So we'll start by sketching out our circle guide. Drawing that smaller circle, about two thirds of the way down with the.in, the middle where the base of where all the leaves are going to meet the stalk. Okay, now we can sketch out our lines for where the leaves are going to sit. As I said, we're going to have 24 leaves this time. Start off by adding in the bottom two lines where those lower leaves will finish. Then we're going to add another line straight up, just like before. We'll add one in between each of these. Now we've got five lines, and then we're going to add one in between each of these as well. Okay, So now you should have nine lines. Okay, In each of these gaps, we're now going to add in two more lines trying to keep them fairly even. I find just spending this little bit of extra time at the minute just means that the leaves look so much more even and balanced as you go around, especially when it comes to the center. Okay, now we have our guide. We can draw in our leaves. I'm just going to do exactly as I did before, starting from the center and going all the way to the edge using these lines as a guide. As I'm moving it around, I'm just going to go back from the start and just check that I look on track. Just make sure this pencil line is where I want it to be. It looks okay to me at the moment. I find that using these guides takes out so much guesswork and frustration. Because now I just need to follow my guides. And I can just relax and enjoy the process without thinking too much. Okay, so once you finish your leave, we can draw in that stalk. I'm just going to draw a line down. And then another one quite close, keeping it narrow and joining it together. Then finally we can just add a little bit of shading. We can add a little bit of shading down the talk. Then at the tips and the bottom of each of these leaves, we can just work our way around. You can add in some longer flicking lines of shading as well, if they're looking too white in the center. Okay, once you've finished your shading and your pens Right. We can just remove our pencil lines. Okay, So I hope you've enjoyed drawing these two fan palms and you found my method of approaching it useful. I just find using the pencil to divide it up in this way really helps. You don't have to worry about the number, like trying to get a specific number of leaves or worrying. If you're breaking it up correctly, just start drawing some lines and then divide them up and then add some more lines and then go from there. In the next video, we'll be drawing our final leaf, which is the eucalyptus. 12. Eucalyptus: In this video, we're going to draw a branch of Eucalyptus. The most recognizable is probably the baby blue, which is usually seen in decorations and bouquets as foliage. The leaves are stemless, they connect directly to the branch, and they are rounded. I've left this one to last because it's a bit of a different leaf to the others, that it has lots of leaves. Instead of just one along the branch, you usually have two leaves that sit next to each other. As you're usually looking at these leaves from a side view. This means that we'll usually end up drawing the leaves in more of an oval shape due to the perspective. If you looked at them flat on, they would be much rounder. As we go through and draw different leaves on the branch, we'll be varying how round they are or how oval just show that they're sitting at different angles on the branch. For our simplest version, we'll start by drawing in a slightly curved line. In pencil, this is the main branch. And we're not going to draw a pencil guide for this one. We're just going to dive straight in just using that branch as our base. I'm moving to my uniform pen so you can clearly see what I'm doing. But please do feel free to carry on in pencil if you're more comfortable. We're going to start with the leaves at the very top. There's usually two leaves that sit together at the very top of each branch. They dip in slightly at the base. We'll do the first one which is closer to us. I'm going to start the dip, so it's going to come down slightly and then be rounded. It's almost like a heart, an upside down heart shape, but it doesn't have that point. This is the one that's closer to us. And there'll be another leaf that is connected to this one. Remember they connect to this branch. At the same point, what we can do here is use our pen, go over the paper, wherever we think it will sit, and then put the pen down. Once we're outside of that leaf, because it's going to sit behind this leaf, we can make this any circular or oval shape that's similar in size to this one. I'm going to go round and then bring that round like that. Moving down a little way, we can do our next one. This one I'm going to come off to the side more, that's a slight dip, and then I'm going to bring that up off to the side. Then the other one is going to sit on the left side. It's going to be slightly flatter because it's going to be more of an angle. We'll move about the same distance down. We'll do a similar one to this one's sitting in front, dipping it out but coming off to the left side this time. Then having the right side which is sitting behind it, coming up from the bottom, following it round, and then meeting there. It's quite fun just playing around with these different angles because you don't need to look at Eucalyptus. You can just follow the principles of they sit next to each other. They're a similar shape, they're a version of a circle. Whether they're a bit more flattened or not, and they're coming off at different angles. It's quite fun just to play around with it. We'll do one more. This one will come off to the right, then this one is going to be, I think, a bit more flatter behind. So I'm going to bring this round and curve it around like that, as this is our simplest one. We're just going to do a single line for the branch. I'm going to bring this down to here. This stem, this branch is going to sit in front of this leaf. So I'm going to draw over there. We'll bring it down again. It's going to sit in front of this one. But this leaf is in front of the branch here. We'll leave and bring it down through this one because it's sitting in front. Then this leaf is in front. That branch will go underneath and we'll bring it down. Then from the center of each of these leaves, we can just do a short flicky line as a vein in the direction that the leaf is going. Keeping it really simple, for this one it might just be a thinking about where the branch sits, usually just trying to have one leaf that sits in front, like this one covering up that branch, and then one leaf that sits behind here. This sits behind the branch the branch runs through. This leaf is sitting in front. When we do the next one, because we want to add some width to this branch, we'll have to draw that out in pencil first. Because if it's a single line, that's fine. It doesn't matter that it crosses through here. Okay, let's do the second one now. Again, use your pencil to draw in this branch. Then I'm going to sketch these ones out in pencil. First these leaves, because then we can figure out where the branch is going to sit, whether it's going to sit in front or behind the leaves. Let's just start by sketching out the leaves in a rounded heart shape. You can just play around with the angles that these are at, which is really quite fun. You can have some which are coming off in really horizontal directions as well. Okay, so we've got our four pairs of leaves. Now we can see and potentially use our rubber to see this leaf sits in front. That branch will go over there, this leaf sits in front. We won't see any of this branch running through here. Then again, this leaf sits in front of the branch. Once we know where those are, I would go to my 02 pen and draw in that branch first, because then we can draw the leaves around it again, two lines, adding that width, following the line down. Okay, now we have our branch, and we know which leaves sit in front and which sit behind. Then we can draw in each of the leaves. So when you go through the branch, make sure you leave the gap of where that branch is, Okay, so I'll stop, leave the branch and then carry on through. So I'm going to add in that vein again with the flicky line. Then finally we can just add a little bit of shading. Switching to my 005, now I'm going to start with some shading from the base next to these veins, just the flicky lines coming up for the leaves behind. You can do some shading all the way along if you like. Just to give it a bit of shadow, it emphasizes that it's sitting behind. This one is behind. I'm adding in a bit more shadow. Again, this one here is behind, adding in a bit more shadow then for the branch, particularly where it joins the leaves. I'm just going to add a little bit of shading just underneath to give it a bit of depth. Okay? And then just take a step back and see if there's any more shading you want to add for this one. Otherwise, when the penis is right, we can remove our pencil lines. Okay, so that's our Eucalyptus finished and those are all seven of our leaves finished as well. In the next video, we're going to be moving on to looking at some project ideas. Well, I'll give you some inspiration and tips for how to use these leaves in your journal as gift tags, cards and more. 13. Project Ideas Part 1: In this video, we're going to cover some project ideas and tips for how you can use these leaves. There are so many fun projects that you can use them with, Similar to how I've shown you in my other classes, when we're drawing flowers and leaf doodles, we can make simple, yet lovely gift tags to add a nice homo touch to presents. We can make greeting cards or bookmarks, and we can decorate our journals with them as well. We can, of course, doodle and draw them solely for fun and relaxation in our sketch books, practicing different designs and compositions without any particular purpose other than to enjoy the process of creating. First, let's talk about Sketchbooks. It can be fun to come up with different designs and compositions within your pen Sketchbooks. These can be really relaxing without any pressure and can also help you practice and give you opportunities to experiment with different ideas. You can then come back to these for inspiration. When you want to create something, you can just have a flick through and see what inspires you at that point. I always like to have some sketchbooks handy for some doodling these mini pocket mole skin. Sketchbooks are great for small designs when you don't want to spend too long on something or if you want to pop it in your bag to do some drawing when you're out and about, perhaps waiting for an appointment or on the train on your commute to work. I'll just talk you through a few of my pages in my sketchbooks. This one is a spread of some floating gingkos all in different directions. It was really relaxing to draw. I mapped this out in pencil first before starting with my pen. And you can see some of these have quite a lot of veins and some have less. I really like the contrast that this gave the piece. Overall, this is a spread of Eucalyptus all reaching different heights. I added a little bit of shading to the leaves, so you can see at the base of each one I colored in the stalk to make it stand out a bit more. These didn't take very long, and it's still quite simplistic, but with those added little details at the shading, it gives it a nice bit of contrast. Here I've done some overlapping monstera leaves. They tend to face downwards. The stalk sits behind them, and then the leaf comes down. I quite like this one because I've left quite a lot of white space at the top. It's quite nice just to have that negative space on the page as well. Again, these are quite simple. Without too much detail. They didn't take very long here. I fancied adding in a quote. I saw this one on line I think, and I thought it was really nice. The Earth has music for those who listen. I first started by mapping out the lettering where I wanted it to go, and then decided where the leaves would sit. I knew I wanted them to come up sides and act as a border to the lettering. I use five different leaves. The ca, the monstera, the fan palm, the banana leaf. Then I added in this royal fern, which is another simple tropical leaf. But it's a great filler for compositions like this. It's quite similar to the Ca, in terms of structure. It has shorter rounder leaves which have a bit more of an organic edge. You can see it's not smooth, they're a bit wobbler lines than the Ca, which is a bit straighter. Again, I wanted to give this piece a bit of contrast. I kept some of the leaves really simple, like the monstera and the banana leaf, which I didn't really add any detail to. Then I added in some shading to the other ones. Next we have some simple banana leaves overlapping. For that contrast, I colored in the background. And I think I used my Tombow brush pen for this just to get that good coverage. Here I've done a vase of eucalyptus. Here are some floating fan palms with some small individual leaves to fill in the gaps. And then I just added some dots in as well. It's a little more fussy than what I'd usually like, but it was quite fun experimenting with a different kind of design. Here are some more banana leaves, again, overlapping each other. You can tell this is one of my favorites because it appears quite a lot in my sketch books. Unlike the other layout where they've all reached the same height, I wanted to play around with the negative space in this one. Have this little bit of a dip come down here. And I quite like how this turned out. I think it's good practice not filling in every space on the page, but instead leaving an area blank to add to the effect. As you can see, I drew some lines in some of these and then left some of these blank for that contrast. In my bigger sketchbook, I have some larger examples of eucalyptus leaves. I've made these stalks really bold to give it some contrast. Again, adding in that a bit more delicate shading to the base of each leaf. Then for these ones, I started playing around with adding some gray using my Tombow brush pen. I went over some of the leaves at the back just to make them a bit darker, to give them a more shaded look, added in a little bit of white using my white gel pen for some highlights. These are fun pages to create when you're getting to know a new leaf or a new subject. This is for the Eucalyptus. I added in some facts and drew an example of both the young leaves, which are rounder and these adult leaves which are longer. Then I also included the flower that's in the plant. Then using those leaves and this little flower, I created this Eucalyptus wreath. Another page similar to the Eucalyptus, one is this Monstera page where again, I've added in some facts here. We've got these baby leaves which are smaller and are unbroken, and then the adult leaves which have more of these slips and holes. Here, I've just experimented a little with addings in different shading to the leaves. Here are some more banana leaves. I started playing around with the shapes and perspectives of these a bit more. Instead of keeping that paddle shape, I made some of these a little bit thinner at the top and made the outer edges a little bit more wavy just to give it a bit more perspective. Here I added a side view. I started with a curve over to the right, and that's the middle vane. Then both sides of the leaf fall inwards. I drew the first side and then just added in a little bit of the other side showing behind. Here's another page of banana leaves. This one I looked at lots of different images on line of leaves of different angles, some twisted like this one. Some bending over, I kept the backs of some of these leaves white and added the veins to the front. You'll see that here and there. Here are a couple of banana plants with leaves at different angles. Again using lots of different references to figure out how they would look and keeping the base really simple. Here we've got a couple of the ca, palms with these ones. I colored in the leaves using my gray pen and just overlapped a couple of them. Just like in the class, how we practice doing that. Added a bit more gray to the leaves beneath to make them look a bit darker. Here I've got a couple of realia leaves. I wanted to try this one out again, overlapping, trying out a slightly different level of detail. So we've got the veins in this one. I've left this one plain just to have a look and see what that contrast would look like together. Got another page of floating gingko here. Then I've also got lots of other leaves in my book, like the elephant's ear. This is the heart's tongue fan. This is a horse chestnut leaf. These are oak leaves. Those are just a few different pages of my sketchbook. Obviously, not all of the leaves were included in this class. But hopefully they can give you some inspiration for ways that you can just doodle and create different designs in your own sketchbooks. 14. Project Ideas Part 2: These leaves are great for using on gift tags. It can take just a few minutes to make them, and it's a really fun and easy way to add a handmade touch to a present you're giving to someone. I've made a few different examples here. You can keep it really simple by just using one leaf, like here with this Rica palm. You can add simple lettering to it, like on these ones. Or you can add multiple leaves on this one. I've added two banana leaves overlapping one has the veins, one doesn't. So it's got some contrast. This one has the Monstera leaf in the front with this Ca palm at the back. Again, this Monstera leaf is quite bold, with very little shading. The ca has more shading in the background. Again, it stands out, you can add a splash of water color, either as a background for this one or inside the leaf, like these two. For these tags, I used either water color paper or mixed media paper. They could easily withstand a little bit of water, but you can also use pens or pencils to add color, which would also look really lovely. Here I added multiple monstera in that floating style like I showed you earlier with the ginko leaves. So there are lots of different yet simple ways you can play around with these. And you can also use craft card or different colored card for all of these. I mapped them out in pencil. First, making sure that there was a bit of border and making sure the lettering didn't end up looking squashed. So I usually start with the lettering and then plan out where I want the leaves to go afterwards. Then go over in pen, and then I just use my whole punches and some twine to finish them off. These leaves are great if you want to draw your own greeting cards as well. I like these small cards and these are pre cut cards I ordered from a paper shop, but you could easily make your own using card and cutting them down to whatever size you wish. I use some very similar designs for these that are used on the gift tags. Either individual leaves like this Ginko or overlapping leaves like these banana leaves and this Monstera and the Rica. Just like that gift tag that I showed you here, I've drawn three eucalyptus stems all at different heights. As with the gift tags, I mapped out the lettering first in pencil, making sure there was a bit of space underneath so it wasn't too squashed. And then sketched out where I wanted the leaves to go, making sure there was a bit of a border. And then it drew in the leaves before going over it in pen, this one is a slightly bigger card and is a square instead of a rectangle. So it's great for a wreath designs like this. And again, this is a pre cut card that I ordered. This composition takes a little bit more time. So I wanted to walk you through my steps for this. I started by finding something circular to draw around for the central circle, I like to use these metal circles I have from my cup machine, but there are so many circular things around the house you'll be able to use as well, just ever hunt for the right size. I then drew a bigger circle. I just use a bowl for this. To give myself a guide for where the leaves would come out to. In this wreath, I used five different leaves. The banana leaf, the Monstera, the aka the Lia, and the fan palm. I started by sketching out the guide shapes for each leaf overlapping each other. The paddle shape for the banana leaf, a heart shape for the Monstera, an oval for the Aca, a circle for both the Lia and fan palm. As the Ca and found palm are both quite spiky. I tried not to have these two next to each other. I then went around again and started drawing in the leaves in pencil. At this point, I just drew in the whole leaf and wasn't worried about which parts would be showing or not when they overlapped. Once you get to this point, you may find that you want to change the positioning of some leaves or the order like I did here. Just grab your eraser and make any changes at this point. This is why it's great to do this in pencil. Once I was happy with where each of the leaves were sitting, I grabbed my pen. I started by choosing a leaf that I wanted to sit at the forefront so I could draw it all in. I then went around the circle and chose a few more that would be sitting at the front as well. Next I drew in the leaves that would be partially hidden sitting behind another leaf that I'd already drawn in. Finally, I drew in the rest of the leaves that was sitting further back, hiding behind the other leaves. I then carefully drew in the circle. I usually add lettering in first as this is quick to do, If you make a mistake you can start over. It's less risky doing it first. But I didn't here, I just wanted to say that I would recommend doing that. I grabbed my pencil again, mapped out where the halfway point was in the circle and then sketched out my lettering before going over it in pen. You can also use a light box and trace over lettering to get the placement right if you want to. For a finishing touch, I decided to add in a fine line around the inner circle. And then added in some veins to some of the leaves, like the banana leaf and the aurelia. This is another wreath, very similar design, but with a finer pen and a bit more detail. You also use a gold pen for the circle inside the wreath. And then added some gold dots around the card just to give it a bit of sparkle as it's a birthday card. You can also experiment with different shapes. Here is an example of a square. This one is a bit fuller, the leaves are overlapping a bit more, they're all a bit closer together. For this one, I also included the royal fern, which is this one here, a simple birch leaf, and also this side view of the banana leaf. Again, here is another circular example which is a bit fuller than the card examples I showed you. This one again is using those additional leaves like the royal fern, the birch leaf. Yet there's a side view of the lana leaf in there as well. It also includes a bolder frame for the circle. We can also use our leaves to decorate our journals. And there are lots of ways that you can do this from big designs on your cover pages, using wreaths like we've just looked at in the cards. Or by using borders around the edge within a layout. Or just using them as quick little additions to decorate the page. Here's an example of a weekly page layout using tropical leaves to decorate the bottom edge. To do this, I first mapped out what I wanted to use the page for and figured out how much space I needed. I wanted the leaf border to be quite a big presence, but not taking over. I didn't want it to come higher than say 23. Using these small dots as grids, I worked out how many lines I needed for the title and for these boxes, and then I knew how much space I had to play with for the leaves. I used my pencil to sketch a guide for the top of where I wanted to the leaves to go, and I wanted them to come round in a nice arch. I drew that in first as a guide. I then sketched in those guides for each leaf, just using that initial shape that we started with. The circle for the area, the heart for the Monstera, the oval for the Erica, and so on. In these ones I've added some gray shading as well, using my Tombobn into some of the background leaves. Here is a very simple design with leaves coming in from the outer edge with a very simplistic style just using lines and no shading. Then one more example of a spread using banana leaves at the edges. Again, really simple with just the outline so that they're not too distracting or overpowering for the page using these are a really nice way to add a bit of decoration. Literally only takes a couple of minutes, but it still looks really nice. You can of course, add some color or more detail to these if you want to. Okay, I hope that was helpful and inspiring and gave you some ideas for how you can use your leaves. There are lots of other ways as well, from bookmarks to decorating your own wrapping paper or even envelopes. And I would love to see your ideas. The next and final video is a short conclusion. Keep watching. 15. Conclusion: I really hope you've enjoyed learning how to draw these leaves with me and feel inspired to create some projects. I would really love to see your work, whether you decide to stick to drawing the individual leaves, which is fun and relaxing in itself, or you wish to experiment with different designs and projects. I would love to see what you create to share your work. Just head to the Projects and Resources tab and click Create a Project. You can upload your image and add a project title and description and any comments you have about your drawings or the class. Your feedback always means so much to me. Please do leave me a review. These are so encouraging for me to see and to read and also really helpful for other students who may be thinking about taking the class. If you're on Instagram, you can tag me in any work you share at Sharon Stevens Design if you'd like to see more of my classes and more of my work. I have lots more classes here on Skillshare. You can check out my other doodling and drawing classes or take a look at my many watercolor classes. I have a popular class on drawing flowers where we draw ten different flowers. Another botanical drawing class on basic leaves for relaxation. I also have an introduction to doodling class if you haven't seen that yet, which is great for beginners if you love watercolor. I also have lots of watercolor classes. You can find all of these classes on my profile page. I also have a watercolor book that is great for beginners and for learning how to use watercolor to watercolor for the soul. And this has 20 fun and relaxing, step by step projects. Okay, once again, thank you so much for watching and happy drawing.