Drawing Fundamentals: How to Draw Poppies [Poppy Study]

1. Introduction: Hey, my name is arruniya and welcome to our drawing class. I'm an artist that specializes in drawing and painting, and I love experimenting with different media in this class will be breaking down how to draw the Poppies into different components, including how to draw the petals, stems and leaves, as well as different drawing techniques based on the media will be using. This project is beginner friendly and guided step-by-step. Our goal is to practice our drawing fundamentals and use the creative process and a Drawing Method you can apply to different Art projects in the future. Over the span of these bite-size lessons, you'll learn not only How to Draw Poppies, but how to break down complex floral shapes into simpler ones. Unique techniques for pencil, pen and coloured pencil drawing. By the end of these lessons, I hope you're justice ductus. I am to have an illustrated and coloured to poppies and feel more confident withdrawing other types of flowers and plants. I'd love to see your artwork, so feel free to share your completed pieces with me for online feedback. Now let's jump in and get started. 2. Brainstorming the Poppies: Welcome to our joint foundations. We're gonna do something related to remember and stays to remember the people that have maybe fighting the war are still fighting, are, have come back. We're gonna get to make poppies. I'm just going to share a couple of pictures here. This is what a Poppy it looks like if anyone's not 100% sure. But we're gonna do something called a poppy study. What you're thinking about free Gore, steady. Today's you're gonna get to create to Poppies. Before we get started, I do want to go over the materials will need. So just to double-check, just make sure you do have paper and some scrap paper. I do have my pencil. I just sharpened it. So if you need a sharpener, you can get that. I have an eraser and I'm going to use my colored pencils today. And if I did want to use a pen, I have the ten. So those are my materials for today. You might just want to think about where you want those poppies to go on your sheets. For example, if I'm brainstorming here really quickly, a quick little brainstorm. You're just thinking about how you're space is gonna be on your artwork. So for example, if this is my sketch, I'm going to work side to side. Where do you want your Poppy to go? Do you want to have any labels on them? So labels are like little titles and stuff. This is another one that also has a label on it. So you can see it says Poppy on it. You might want to figure out which way you want your poppies to face. So are they facing towards the inside? So that's like the stem. And you might have like the inside there. Do you want to face the other way you can decide? Do you want to have a title somewhere? Do you want to have a description somewhere? Usually what the study you are trying to look at it and draw exactly what it is. And then you can change it up afterwards or you can make it look a little different. Arts aren't gonna be exactly the same, but we're going to be drawing by looking at a picture, will be trying some different lines today, building up some of the shapes and then trying different values as well. I've a couple of examples I want to show everyone, so I've got another one here. What's kinda cool about this one? Does this all black and white. There's lots of contrast from the background to what's actually being shown on the inside. I also like these because for darker areas, they don't really shaded there, kinda playing with lines. So if you put lots of lines really close together, it looks like it's kinda shaded, but I didn't shade. But if I space them out, it looks a little lighter than the darker area, right? So some things you can try. I wanted to show this one because this one has lots of value changes. Dark areas, light areas, areas in between. This is the one that I made the other day. So you can kinda see the shapes and stuff that came out. At the end of the day. You can decide what you want yours to look like. If you want to space them out the way I didn't put one on each side. You can do that if you'd like. You can see I put the little label right in the middle. So today I might do something similar, but I might want to change up where the label goes, and then I'm going to change up what material I use as well. So for this one I just use pencil and coloured pencil. I want you to figure out what your space looks like. So an example is you can have them kinda the way it is my sketch here, where there's like two on each side and then there's a label in the middle. So I put like a rectangle for the label. You can do two on each side, but maybe the labels on the top. Maybe you put them both on the side. But then you have some writing about something on there. So you can decide which way you want to have it. I just want you to make sure you know what it looks like or what your plan is when you start. For me, I think I'm gonna put it in the middle, right? I'm going to have a label somewhere. Okay, So just as a sketch, I'm going to keep one on both sides and pretend this is my Flower. We're going to draw the flowers together. So I don't want to really draw too much detail in them. They just want to figure out if you want to add any other details in there. So maybe you want to have some writing at the bottom. Just to reminder, even if we're using different materials today, I would recommend starting in pencil, because if you do make any mistakes or you want to change something up, you can erase it. Once you've finished base sketch, you can go over it with different materials. So please start with pencil. So this is my good Copy Sheet here. We're now what I'm gonna do is I'm just going to split it down the middle. So you can use a ruler for this if you want, but you don't have to, because remember, these are gonna be erased later. I'm just going to go a little bit darker so you can see. But since I'm erasing these, I don't wanna go too dark. I'm going to show it zoomed in picture of one of our references here. Is there any shapes that you do see in here where you're like, Oh, I can see if I was going to break it down. So there's a circle in the middle for sure. I want both of my Flowers to face the middle. And what that does for the eyes are like when people see it as it keeps their eyes on the sheet, you're just going to find the middle or that circle first. Remember you want a good amount of space to put your Flowers. So if this is the middle, like the middle going this way, I'm gonna put that dot a little bit close to the middle, okay? So that circle, so somewhere in here, I'm just gonna do a little circle. I'm going to keep it small and light for now. It looks like an oval. I can go a little bit lower actually because I wanted to make sure my petals have enough space. None and erase the first circle. So this is like the middle. I'll add some details later. So I'm going to find the easy petals first. The two on the top that are like more U-shaped are gonna be the easier ones because you can see all of it, right? The other two on the back are a little bit harder to see Because they're underneath the top two. So those ones we'll do later, the ones on top will do first. So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm actually just going to find a U-shape from one of the petals that top pedal. And it is going to touch this circle. So when you're ready, if you'd like, just keep it really light. You'll see when it gets to the circle, I don't go over. If you go over it, you'll just erase it later. Solaris that later. And then what's nice about trying these petals today is there's a very neat, interesting line that goes up top. So there's almost like a wavy line. I usually the top of the petals. If you look at the circle here, I point to the top middle. I'm going to leave a big curve somewhere there. Okay, so just as reminder, if this is the you, this is the middle circle from the middle, I'm going to point out somewhere in here. I'm just going to make a big curve. And then basically all the curves that attach or bumpy little curves. That's like the little pattern I would follow. These salts can be like half circle bumps. But I've got a pedal. You are going to explore different kinds of lines States I would recommend making some decline something lines. I'm going to do that once this is close to them, I'll just go a little bit bigger just so I can help them. I space. If you need to do that, you can. But the next shape I'm going to look for is that other easy pedal, that other petal. It's almost like this U-shaped. Yes. I'm going to make it like an oval to start. So instead of making a U-shape, we're going to make an oval shape. Okay? Because we're looking at it kinda facing upward. This oval shapes are already going to touch the circle. But make it really light because remember, we are going to change it a little bit. Okay? So you'll see me here, make an oval that's kinda touching the circle here. You'll see it's like a long circle or oval. I'm going to attach to the oval, to the circle with a couple of curved ones. You're gonna see it here. I'm just going to curve and I'm going to attach. So it's kinda like I'm building that you. And then because I can kinda see this a little bit differently, It's kinda curved upwards. I'm still going to find that wavy line that goes across the middle here. I'm going to build it in big wavy line. Start a little bit later if you'd like, around the edges, I am gonna go a lot lighter because I'm going to build one that curves in just a little bit to show one that's built-in with a little bit of a curve on the inside, making them really bumpy and kinda make a curved line if you'd like, less bumpy. And then you'll just build in a wavy line on the inside, on the edge. So take a look here, if you're curious, I'm going to build a bumpy line. Come back out. That makes it looks like it's curved in just a little. And then remember our oval, you can kind of erase the guidelines if you still have some of that oval showing through. So it's more just to help find our shape, right? If you guys want to have more of a curve, you can curve it inside a little bit if you'd like. If you want to have more curves, you don't have to. I'm just gonna leave a little more space in the middle so it's not close together. So I'm gonna do the bottom one first because we can see more of the bottom one than the top one. To do the bottom one on both sides of my flower, I'm just gonna make two lines that come outward. So anywhere near the bottom here, it's gonna make line that comes out. And then another one on the other side that comes out. And think of its petals, It's really big petals right? Somewhere. If this is the middle, it comes out. Someone here is gonna be a big wavy line or little waves. If you want to make a section that bends in a little bit, kinda like an a reference photo. You're going to make the top of a rectangle. Okay, so look here, this is where I want it. I'm making the top of a rectangle. You guys see it? Hello to my rectangle top. It's like it's a little bit softer. There's no points. That's going to help me build in the top of a rectangle, the curve. So if anyone wants to build a curve in, I'm gonna put it closer to the right side. Just kinda looking at our picture. Let's just like the top of a rectangle. And instead of making it point to you, I'm just going to curve it a little bit. It's almost like a bump. If you want to find the little bumps underneath it comes to add a little extra line. So same thing on the other side. But instead of making it this big, make a little bit smaller and like a wavy line, it comes to the other side. So for the other side, instead of going down with the one, I'm just gonna come up with a line. Now continue like a bumpy line. Are like little waves all the way. The other pedal that's a little bigger than I want to go. So I'm just gonna make it a little smaller. Then as long as you're going light enough, you can erase any lines that you don't want to keep. Find what, which direction you want the stem to go. I'm gonna come straight down to it to curve, to want to go the other way, I'm going to curve it like a seed because I want the flower to face the inside, as I mentioned, from the circle, I can pretend it goes this way. Then I just added gentle, gentle one occurs. Kinda faces the inside. I'm going to double it up. Strong comeback to the stem later. 3. Finish Drawing the First Poppy: There's a couple of dark, empty spots near the middle that we're going to fine tune. So you can see there's about three in this picture here. So it's almost like a little U-shape. I'm just going to gently shade that. Just sits a little darker. I'm going to start to build in the details in the middle. So just out on your circle, if you're going to keep that circle, if you want to change a little bit, you can. You'll notice these dark areas that I'm colouring Art really close to the middle, leaving a little bit of space. Most like the pollen, right? If I can pull up our picture from before. Or like the little dots, 17 little dots there. That's what we're going to draw next. Okay. So before I draw that end, if you want to add any details, the little circle I'm just going to colour and a little circle in the little circle. And I'm just going to add a short lines that come out from the middle. Kinda reminds me of like the sections of an orange, right? If you're ready to start adding circles, you kinda add the little circles in a giant circle. If that makes sense. I'm shouting little circles and I'm just bringing it around the edge. So I'm just building little circles. Try them to go too close to the middle because he got to draw them lines that connect them. I'm just trying to populate lots and lots of little circles. Built all these circles and not a couple more until there's hard, It's hard to find extra spaces. And then when you're ready you can start to connect them to the middle. Out. Connect them with curved lines, are straight lines. Let's try to see they're connecting. Overlap more or less depending on how you feel. Now I'm going to show you how to play with line. If you'd like. Chicken make thick lines, thin lines, It's going to make your artwork look very interesting if you try to use different kinds of lines. So before I add any details to the inside, I'm just going to outline the important areas. I don't have to outline everything. But you'll notice like closer I get to darker spots. I'll give it a little outline and I I'll just keep outlining the rest in like different line weights. So may be thinner in some areas that might be thicker and other areas. If you're unsure what that looks like and you're kinda hesitant, you like on an open the leg it just do a thin line all around and you can add some thick ones later. But this will make other areas pop a little bit, especially the ones in the background and the ones behind it. It's already pushed away. So if you outline a little bit of pop, pop lumbar. So if you want to add short lines that come out kind of like little hairs. Welcome to texture for different lines. So when you drawn lines, if you're going to try to resemble this kind of style, you just want to make sure you're going gently, you're not pressing too hard because if you do want to change it, you can erase it. But most of the lines, if you kinda continued to line, they go towards the middle or the circle. So it's almost like an orange or otherwise kind of face the middle or like a pumpkin. So if you want to draw some big ones that are spaced out like near the top, you can do that. Anything you want to look darker. You want to bring the lines a little bit closer together. Okay, so I'll show you a couple of easier lines. So say I'm drawing towards that circle on this first petal that we made. I'm just gonna make a couple that go towards the middle. And you'll see as it starts to curve, they're kinda going in a different direction, right? Like they're going towards the middle. So you'll see the lines don't always go in one direction. They go in many directions or they go towards the middle. I have some going on in the middle there. I'll make some short ones are ones that are spaced out near the top here. They still technically go towards the middle, right there, just further away now. So keep that in mind when you're Creating those lines. If you want to create a slightly darker area, I'm going to do that for this back pedal, you see where they overlap? I'm just gonna make a bunch of short lines that are really close together. This is hatching. If you want to make them crosshatching where they're overlapping more, you can try that to. For this one, I'm gonna make the lines come out just like this. I'm gonna make them a little bit closer together, so it looks a little bit darker. And I'm gonna make more. You can make them short, long. You can decide. I'm gonna make it a couple of here. I'm going to try something the other side now. So I'm gonna make some that are really close together. Maybe it looks a little bit darker. And I'll add just a couple of loose leaf near the top. So if you're finding that you're losing some of the details, you might want to try some thick lines to separate the petals from him losing some of the details because they're kind of joining together a little bit. Back pedal on the front petal. I've tried different lines, make sure they're not all exactly the same. Like what if a robot was making it? They'd always be the same. Try them in different sizes, space out a little bit. So there's an interesting line that's on this first petal here or like a setup lines, it makes almost like a shadow. So to do that, I'm just gonna make short lines that repeats towards the bottom, almost like those drawing stairs. I'm kinda see short lines that are close together. But I've kinda additive. I'm going to try something like that in the back here. See what happens. And then near the middle from the back petals I'm going to make a lot more lines because I wanted to look a lot darker. Like make more shadows. So that's kinda how I'm going to finish up these pedals. Remember that area that I said was kinda like the top of a rectangle from there you want to align that gently goes towards the middle, not a full line, but one of the corners. Just going to make a short line that's a little bit thicker, that goes towards the middle. So it looks kinda bench. I realized that I have my flower here, but if lots of above space, some either adjust a little bit or I can make like some details on top. For the leaf. I'm just going to change the picture here. There's a couple of ways you can do leaves. You can draw the little line in the middle and then build the outside shapes. So it's almost like pokey triangles on the outside. So I'm going to have a couple of leaves. I think I'm going to do one, so I'm just going to draw the line for them first. If that's like the middle line, do another one that maybe comes down a little bit too. Then maybe another 13. I have three little leaves. You want to have the little bulbs of the flowers that haven't opened up yet. You can do that too. But for the plants themselves, once you have this, I'm just going to build up a triangle up top, a thin triangle. It's not to be perfect. In trying laptop. If you want to make one of them a bulb or like the oval shape. And I'm going to leave one that's like an oval. And then for any of the sides of the leaves are almost like little triangles. You can build the top of a triangle here. Top of a triangle here, as it gets closer to the bottom, that can be a little bit smaller if you want. Almost reminds me of like performance of a dinosaur battle or not. The horns like the back of, it looks like the back of a Stegosaurus, those triangles. I'm just building a couple. And then basically once you build a couple of you can kinda connect them, right? So connected, you can elect them with little triangles to if you feel like you don't have enough space and they don't connect really well. Just add triangles. And then just because these are, the leaves are still important. So you want to make sure you outline them or add a little bit of detail you the way you did for the flower. I'm just going to outline them a little bit. There's still important. You can add some lines that come out from the middle towards the triangles if you'd like. Basically one. Just like the flower. I'm just going to add some short lines to add just slightly darker areas. If you want to add lighter areas, you can make lines that are separated a bit more. Do the bulb or like the circle parts. The circle part, I'm just going to add a couple of short lines. The edges look a little bit darker and it looks like some of them have like almost like the top of an acorn. Were they like open up. So I just added a line. I'm going to keep this as a pencil sketch. This is my steady part of my study. And then I'm going to try some different materials, Experiment with some different materials for my second one. Also, this middle line has helped. It's done its purpose if you want to start erasing it or if you have a line beside it, you can 4. Drawing the Second Poppy: We're going to start the same way. We're just going to find the circle in the middle. So I'm going to draw them out a similar height or maybe like a little bit higher. So somewhere here, go the other side, try to love the higher. Maybe like here. And still an oval shape. I'm going to start the next U-shaped. So the big difference between this one, this one is the U-shaped, actually looks like a U that's facing upward. So I'm gonna make a you that faces upward here. I'm keeping it light to start. I don't know where I'm going to change things. I'm going to adjust things a little bit. I think I can make it a little wider though and make it like a wide U-shaped. Keep it light. And then just like before, if you want to find some bends in the top, just bending it a little bit on the sides a little bit if you'd like. And then you've got a pedal. And remember, you might want to draw with a different medium for the next one. So I'm going to still start this in pencil. I'm going to probably make this one in coloured. So I'm gonna make the next petal that I can see that's a little bit easier to see, the one that's right across from it. So it's also a U-shape, but instead of the you touching the circle view goes off the bottom and the top touches the circle. I'm gonna make another U-shape. And the top, whatever wavy line, um, here, it's going to touch that circle. If you feel like it's two odd, you can squish it more. So it's kinda like the oval where it's like a squishy oval versus like a U-shaped pedal. And then the other two petals are actually like the ones we did first. This one at the back should be easier where you just find the edges and then the wavy line, the one at the bottom, it's kinda like the oval. And then you disconnect, connect one pedal on this side, what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna make a gentle and that comes up, it kinda follows the side of this first petal. Kinda comes up a little bit, comes out, a little bumpy light comes out. I'm going to stop a little bit behind this petal here. I'm just gonna make a straight line. They can overlap a little bit. If you'd like, social, you write erase it. Diagonal line of the triangle kind of goes where there's in-between space here. They almost line up. And instead of making a straight line for this edge, I'm just going to curve it a little because that's going to help me with the pedal shape. Basically what you do is if you want this to Overlap, then you can Overlap. Last one. I'm gonna make it go under though. And then instead of keeping a straight line on top, you can make it a bumpy light. So that's pretty much it. I built some of the ones on the inside, just like this flower. There's a couple of petals on the outside. So if you want to build a couple of wavy lines in and connect them back, you can, I'm going to build in one of the small petals. So just like this one on the outside, I'm just gonna make two short lines. And I'm going to connect with a big bet. And then little, little bits, little wavy lines. And do the same thing again on this side. So you can decide if how many want, how big you want them to be. Just make sure that a light in case you want to adjust it. And then whenever you're ready you can find the stem. So it did face this one inward. So I'm also going to face this one in Word. So it looks like they're looking at each other. So starting from the circle, kind of go far. You want to go with that like a backwards C-shape. If you want to add any text anywhere and you want to start to figure out where that goes. So I did mention I might put something here at the top. If you need a ruler to draw a line or something, you can. I'm just going to fit it here. Just as a reminder for myself, I'm just drawing a line. I'll erase this later. But I want to fit something there or something in the middle here because I have lots of space. Or I can fill this with leaves and light bulbs and stuff. An ad like one leaf shape that comes up and over. They will draw another one that comes up and over. And then we're down. Help with my space. So think about what space you have left, but you've planned for and then see what you can fill up So I'm just going down, doesn't I did leave them blank because I'll put false there. Alright, so I've outlined it, so I'm trying to decide which one I want to use a different material with. I might be a little bit of pen for once and add coloured pencil somewhere if I'd like. So do you want to try and layering? I'm going to break out my pen. Whenever you use a different material that's not erasable, I would test it out on some scrap paper. So I'm just testing it out on my brainstorming sheet to make sure it works. It works, which is great. I forgot I didn't do the inside, so I'm just trying moulins, look on the inside, little circles, little dots to make it different from the first set of dots. I'm going to color these ones in this time. So you can see what they look like. Because yeah, because in our actual reference photo, if I go back, they're dark. Do you see that? I'm going to make them dark as well in this one. So the angle I'm looking at this flower with, I can't see the ones at the bottom because I puddles covering it. Just remember if you could do have one like that that yours is covered. I do want to play with different kinds of lines, so I do have some thick lines and something lines. I want to try it, but I'm gonna go in with pen to make sure I can try to play with that with my pen. I'm just going to go in with pen. Remember things that you can erase, just take your time. Take your time. So I'm just going over the edge, all the edges trying some thick lines and thin lines. If you're not sure, just outline it first and then you can add some lines second. Just make sure you're trying to variety of different lines is showing values like light, dark areas, slightly lighter, slightly darker areas. We've built up most of the shapes together, so that part's already done. And then we kind of build contrast. So putting two opposite things together, like really light areas for really dark areas together. That could be with colors or could be with black mites or pencil or pen. Basically anything against a light surface like the paper is going to create a little bit contrast. I will say near the middle circle it is a little bit darker. If you want to add a bit of shadow by crosshatching or hatching, adding some extra lines together. You can I'm just going to Overlap, see if I can just get more lines and then I'm going to do the circles, dark circles. I'm gonna pull a couple of colors from my poppies. So if anyone does want to work in coloured pencils today in and wanted to try to follow along. I'm going to use red and like a dark orange. Red. Dark orange, I'm going use two colors for now. If I want to use a dark color later, I can, but as I mentioned, I'm going to outline first. I might just add a couple lines and just for shadows. But you'll see me start to outline and then slowly, gently coloured in adding a little bit of shadow lines, just like I did for the pencil one. Okay, So just added a couple of extra lines here and there 5. Colouring the Poppy: To make colorful areas, I do have my red. I'm just going to outline, I think class when I used red, orange, and pink. I'll show you one pedal just to start and then how to add shadows outlining here. Because this is like old dry medium over pen. It shouldn't smudge. I'm going to have just gently colour first. You'll notice I don't press very hard. I'm just going to go close to the bottom or even close to the edges. I'm just overlapping. So the more I Overlap, the darker or more vibrant that value is gonna get. So I'll just do the edge here so you can see, right, starting to get more vibrant, I'm going to probably go back and with a pink turning orange, I can even use red. But they'll shut. You'll see how much just to coloured pencil can do. If you Overlap. I'm just overlapping and light layers. That's what I would recommend. If and else I'm just going over it with red and then I'll add a bit of extra value wherever I haven't left. And then because this is my coloured version, I'll probably coloured leaves and as well. I didn't write my word Poppy down. So that's something I will write down. But it's POP PUI. Or if you put poppies like plural, it's PLP BICS. The flower petals that are furthest to the outside, I'm just making them a little darker. So it looks like they're far away from the late that have more shadows going on. Closer to the middle. I'm going to add, I'm still going to add layers, add more of the orange and the, It's more vibrant. Usually when I'm creating shadows, I won't layer with black. Maybe here in there if it's like really dark, I'll just use a similar color to whatever color I'm using. Slightly dark red or purple is kinda similar. Meaning go to blue, but it will create a lot of contrast, which might be okay because we wanted contrast today. Learn some of the red. I'm just gonna go in and layer some of the orangey areas that I've already added into one of them. The other areas and believes I'm gonna go and green and a darker. You can take what the steps outlined So many, is it a different screen to overlap some of the darker areas, kinda like a different flower. As I mentioned before, I need to rent the word poppies. I've accidentally smudged using the side of my hand on my paper. So I'm just going to erase some pencil smudging is I've accidentally done here discussing the wide side of my eraser, but trying to be gentle in case I accidentally smudge more than I'm using the short side or control here. Okay, I think I'm gonna do my Poppy, the word like a cursive. If you want to add any labels to your artwork, you can as well as sometimes studies will have that to show different parts of the Poppy or different parts of the plant. Whatever we're drawing here. I'm just gonna go on with my pencil case. I change anything or want to just gonna go cursive, I'm stringing it gentle P, the P will be separate. Usually cursive, they're all connected. I'm gonna write the word poppies because there's more than one Facebook Poppy, even if you did too, if you'd like poppies. And then for the ion is going to put those poppies there. I'm gonna erase the guideline that I made. Alright, there you go. This is my Poppy from today, are my poppies from today. Some of the biggest things we focused on when we were building our poppies is thinking about the shapes we built together to make them. Thinking about the spaces we use to compose where everything went, different kinds of lines, different kinds of values, slightly darker areas, lighter areas, and contrast. So light areas compared to dark areas are putting things that are very different together. Like I'm very colorful piece on a white background. Or even write performance when it was in its pencil and pen stage versus the background was also a little bit of contrast. I hope you have been, this one's a fund one to try to experiment with different ways to shade into colour. So hopefully you had a good time. Thanks so much for joining and we'll see you soon. Bye