Transcripts
1. Intro: The best part about
drawing plants I think, is being able to play
around with shapes. You can have a lot
of fun abstracting and stylizing as
much as you like. As long as you include
some basic elements that are recognizable as
leaves or flowers, you can't go too far wrong. Hi, I'm Sarah Holiday. I'm an artist and illustrator
based in Scotland. Nature is one of my
biggest inspirations and I love including botanical
elements in my work, whether that's incorporating
them into the background of a scene or as the main
focus of the illustration. In this class, I'm
going to show you a few simple methods for
stylizing your plant shapes. And guide you through several
easy drawing exercises. So that by the end
of this class, you'll be equipped with
some handicechniques to create your own
unique plant designs. We'll start off by making
quick studies from photo references before
talking about shape language. And how to come up with
unique leaf shapes and look at some simple
ways to draw flowers. We'll then practice
putting leaves and flowers together in a vine
or stem structure. And we'll also practice drawing potted plants and
grass and foliage, really low pressure, easy class. That's suitable for
total beginners or just anyone who wants to have a bit of fun drawing plants. We'll focus purely on
sketching and drawing plants. Instead of creating a
polished finished piece. It's a nice and easy
project that you can spend as little or as much time
as you want exploring. I'll be showing you how
I draw in real time with no sped up footage so that you can easily follow
along as we go. While I'll be demonstrating
this class in procreate, feel free to follow along
with paper and pencil in your sketchbook or whatever you feel most comfortable
drawing with. If you're ready to get started and have fun drawing plants, then I'll see you in class.
2. Studies: Welcome to the class. I'm so happy you've decided
to join me to begin with. We're going to dive
straight in and start sketching plants
from reference. Grab whatever drawing materials
you'd like to work with, and let's get started. Okay, I'm going to go ahead
and open up Procreate. And I'm going to press this
plus button in the corner. I'm just going to select a
canvas from those presets. I'm going to move that horizontally into a
horizontal format. Now I can start drawing. I'm going to be using the six pencil which you can find in the sketching folder. It's in the middle of
that sketching folder. On procreate, I'm also going
to bring up Pinterest. I'm just going to slide
up from the bottom. I've got that Pinterest app
already selected on my ipad, and I'm going to drag
that to the side of Procreate so that it appears
alongside Procreate. I'm those three dots at the top. And just move that over to the other side so
that I can more easily draw with my
right hand on procreate, I am going to search
for just plants. You can be more specific
if you want to. You also don't have
to use Pinterest. You can use Google
or unsplash or whatever image search
database you want. But I like Pinterest. What I'm going to do is
basically just scroll through these images and see if there's anything
that catches my eye. And I'm going to draw
it really loosely. I'm actually going to keep my canvas half of the ipad size, but you can, if you want, drag this little
tab over to make this 23 side of the size of the screen or even
much smaller ratio. I'm going to keep me, I'm going to keep my canvas
quite small on the screen. I'm just going to
try and draw what I see using as few
lines as possible. And try and draw it as
quickly as possible. Here I'm just looking at
this flower shape and at these petals and the
way that they curve. I've actually drawn that at an angle compared to what
it looks like in real life. But I want you to be able
to capture the essence of what you see without having to create a realistic
rendition. You can see. I've used very few lines, I've not even close
some of these outlines. And then I'm just going
to add in a few lines to suggest that texture. That's it for that sketch. If you're more comfortable just drawing more simple shapes, that is totally fine here. I'm drawing these simple plants. I'm just noticing
the general shape that I've got one big circle and then feature that sticks
out to me is there's this little circle in the middle and a stem
coming down from the site. What's cool is that
in that image, they're drawn at
different angles. This one is more of
a face on circle. This one is more squash. It looks more like an oval. I can draw those in. This one at the top
is very squashed, and we can see more of the stem. I'm not really
capturing this exactly, but this just gives
me a very quick way. And then I've quickly
drawn in the pot as well, just with a couple of lines, Curved line in a straight line. I haven't captured
perspective or anything, but you can tell that this plant is the same as this
one at a glance. That's what I want to be doing, I just keeping these quick. I'm going to draw
this fern as well. Actually, I'm just going to
draw one leaf of this fern. I'll see this one's got a bit
more detail in the lines, but I'm actually just going to try and draw it really quickly and use little bumps to
suggest the outline. You can see that I started with a line to show the direction, then a little bumps
around the outside. I would suggest to
just fill a page with quick sketches like these. Keep them loose. Just draw from images that you find inspiring. I'm going to draw
this flower here. Keeping it very, very simple, I advise you to draw more from photographs rather than
from illustrations. Try to figure out if there's a main directional line or a main shape that
you can base this off. For example, here I was drawing
this flower and I started off with pretty
much a circle shape and drew some of
those petals into it. I haven't copied
the petals exactly, but I got the general flow of how those petals
interact with each other, and the general shapes. I'm not bothering at
all with shading or anything like that with
this monstera leaf. I can draw the big shape first and then go in
with the little details. Again, I'm not trying
to be too mathematical about getting the
placement correct. Try to draw flowers and leaves. Anything that you think is interesting or that you
just like the look of, you don't have to
draw the whole plant. You can just draw one
leaf, one flower. Or you can and draw the
whole plant and see if you can just simplify the shape to make it
quick for you to draw. So you can see, I'm not drawing any patterns within the
leaves at this time either, just any shapes that you
think are interesting. Doing this, it gives us an
appreciation for all of the different shapes that
you can find within nature. Within plants, it will help
inspire us to come up with some unique shapes
for our own plants. I'm really only spending a
few seconds on each drawing. Actually, most of
the time is spent searching for which
references I want to draw from and looking at what I find interesting that's
part of the process is to just look at loads of plants and see observe the
different shapes. And then make mental notes about all these
different shapes. Because it's hard to draw plants if we don't
already have that knowledge of what different shapes we can use to play with and
stylize our work. Okay, I will just slide that over to
get rid of Pinterest. Now you can see that I have filled up a page just full
of very rough sketches. Just using as few lines as possible and not
doing any shading, just capturing the shape and maybe a little bit of
lines within these shapes, just capturing the essence. Within here you can see that we've captured many
different plant shapes, flowers and leaves and overall
compositions of plants. We've got some hanging leaves, some ferns, and just
individual leaves. Your task is to
complete this exercise, fill a page with
drawings like this. Then once you're ready, we can move on and practice stylizing leaf shapes
more from imagination.
3. Leaf Shapes: Okay, so I am just going to
stay in the same canvas. I'm going to turn
that layer off and I'm going to add a new layer pressing the plus
butts in there. Now I'm going to show you
how I stylize leaf shapes. Generally, when I am drawing
plants or stylizing leaves, I'll use more organic
shape language. I'm working with
circles and triangles, meaning that I'm using more curved lines in combination with more jagged, pointy lines, then I'm
sticking those together. For example, we can use those
pointed lines together with a curved line or curved lines and points in combination to create different leaf shapes. If you are familiar
with shape language, we know that pointed
shapes are more associated with
danger excitement. When we see pointed
shapes were a bit more alert, more on edge. Whereas soft rounded
shapes make us feel calm. They make us feel safe because there aren't any
spiky edges there to hurt us. Using a nice combination
of these shapes together, if you do use more
pointed shapes, that'll come across as more dangerous, maybe more exciting. Whereas if you use more
rounded flowing shapes, that'll come across as
more safe and soft. You can just be aware
of that when you're coming up with your leaf shapes and your plant designs as well. Another shape to
consider is squares. I don't often use
these in plant designs because they're not as
commonly seen in nature. But it can be fun to
try using squares to stylize your leaf
shapes in combination with the circular and
triangular shape language. That would just be incorporating more right angles
into your designs. That can be something that you might want
to play with as well. I won't be using much square shape
language in this class. Okay. I'm just going to
start a new layer again and we're going to try to just come up with
different leaf designs. We think about a really
basic leaf design would be this pointed oval shape
that's pointed at both ends. We've got that pointy
shape language and then the rounded shape
language making up that leaf. Something else you can do to further suggest that it's a
leaf is just adding a stem. You can add a stem
going right the way down or just
half the way down, or you can just add it on to the bottom, whatever
works for you. Basically, what we're
going to do now is using our knowledge of the
plants that we've just sketched and thinking
about shape language, we're just going to come up
with our own leaf designs. For example, I might want to add three little pointed
edges instead of one here and adding a stem. Or I might want to
use this basic shape, but make it more wiggly. I might want to
invert the bottom of it and make it a heart shape. Or maybe I can make it pointed. You can just play with
different things, thinking about what would any of these leaf shapes look like if they
were stretched. Or if you wiggled them a little bit and
made them asymmetrical. Or if you took one of these and made one side
much bigger than the other. You can also think
about what would happen if you squished one of these or use rounded
shape language instead. You can also add lines
within your leaves, which can add extra interest. I like to use my lines going diagonally
rather than straight across, but you can always play
with that as well. You can also take chunks out of your leaves as
if they've been being eaten, which can be quite interesting. Or if you think about
the monstera leaf which has lots of
chunks out of it, you can stylize that as well. Just have a play around here. You don't need to create
realistic looking leaf shapes. This is just a
chance to see what works and what doesn't
work as a leaf shape. And you can always use
very basic shapes, like a simple circle and really think about stylizing time making some long ones as well as some short ones. And I'll try some of that square shape language as well to see what do you say. Once you've filled out a
page full of these designs, then let's move on
to drawing flowers.
4. Flower Shapes: I'm going to hide
that layer again. Actually, I'm just
going to go in and rename these so that we don't get lost in
the class shapes. Okay, And then I'm
going to start a new layer for
my flower shapes. Flower shapes are
quite similar to leaf shapes except that
they generally have lots of petals together
that are splayed out in some pattern
or arrangement. First of all, let's break down
a few common petal shapes. You can have a simple oval shape or maybe an oval with
a point at the bottom. Could also maybe a heart shape. Or we also can get really
long petals or petals that are more wavy
and maybe crinkly. So that's just a few examples. Then generally, a flower will be splayed out in a
circular fashion. We think of having a
little star like template, maybe either six, or five, or four petals or much more. If we draw that lightly, and we maybe choose just
a simple oval petal, then we can just go around in a circle and
create this flower shape. Generally, I don't need some guide like this
and I will just freehand drawing the flower
very simply, like this. Then usually we'll
have some, a center. That's a very simple
way to draw a flower. We could also do the same thing, maybe with four petals instead. If you want to use some
guide to draw the flower around and then erase that so that you can get
evenly spayed petals, then that is absolutely fine. I usually just
free hand it and I don't mind if it's a bit messy. I usually don't count
the amount of petals unless I want it to look
like a specific flower. Using the same method, we can try these
different petal shapes we could using this
heart shaped flower, and I'm going to try and
squeeze in five petals. It doesn't matter if some of them look a bit
more squished in. We get a different flower
shape to our more basic one. Then you also get flowers that have loads of
different petals. Especially if you
think about a daisy, it's got loads of
these long petals. I don't want to draw
each one individually. I will probably more likely draw a circle with a very bumpy line, and then draw a circle for
the inner part of the flower. Or we can do the same
thing with the petals. Then for more buds or flowers
like roses or peonies, often I will just
start with a circle. For the petals that
are really bunched together that they don't
really splay out individually, I will just draw overlapping petals as if they're
cupping around a circle. And then I'll draw some that are overlapping that circle a few Just around the outside. It's more like a
peony style for Rose, I might draw more smooth lines
like a Ni Macintosh style. They also have these
petals that curve over. If we try another one, maybe if I use more of
a spiky shape language, I'm not sure if there
are any flowers that are actually
look like this. But probably we can
use the same effect, but it's just got a different
petal shape language. Another thing we can do is layer different types of petals. In that case, we
could start with the innermost layer first, then we create an outer layer. If you think about water lilies shaped like this a little bit, I'm sure there are other
types of flowers like that. You might also want to just pick out some individual petals. For example, on a daisy or another flower that has
lots of individual petals. Another thing you can do is you can change the size
of the inner circle. You can also draw that first. If you think about a sunflower, it's got a very big inner circle compared to the size of the
petals around the outside. That's just a few different
things you can play with. Obviously, with flowers,
there are loads of different shapes to think about. You also have some
that are bell shaped, like snowdrops or blue bells. And you can play with shape
language with those as well. With more spiky bell shapes
or rounded bell shapes, you also get flowers that are sometimes more of
a conical shape. If you think about
lavender or lupins, again, those are more
like clumps of flowers. Within the structure, there are loads of different
structures of flowers. We're not going to go too much into very complex ones today because there are just so many different
variations of flowers. I could be here all day, but these are very basic things to start thinking about
when stylizing flowers. If you want to create a
specific look of flower, then I advise that you find a reference and you
try and simplify and stylize that in your own way using some of the techniques
that I teach you today, Thinking about
these flowers would be more looking down
on them, face down. But what if we want to draw a
flower from a profile view? If we think about using
these lines again, we can start off by
drawing the stem. This time maybe you
would just see more of the flower generally
going upwards in a V shape, but that's not always the case. And then we could do the
same thing by drawing around that to create the V shape. Moving upwards, again, just thinking about the
shape of the petals. And then I'm going
to draw a stem. I can also draw a little bit of greenery where the petals
attach to the stem. And then some leaves as well. Again, you can play with
the number of petals, but just loosely following
that same pattern, you can also play with
the shape of the flower. Instead of moving
upwards in a V shape, the petals can be
floating downwards in an arrow shape, for example. The petals can be
angled downwards, we see more of that inner
circle as a rounded head. And then we can add on the stem. For this one, let's have
this going up the way. Something that can be
quite fun is adding in these stamens things. Add a line with a
little dot on it, and I'll add maybe two
or three of those. Just move this down a bit so you can see a bit more clearly. Then for the more circular,
bunched up petals, I will keep that rounded shape to start with maybe
drawing the stem, then I'll have those petals moving upwards around
that rounded shape. And you might see some
from the back as well. Then I can just erase
any overlapping shapes. Some of those petals might be
falling downwards as well. You can play around with different things and
see what works for you, what doesn't, what you like. Something else you can do with where the flower is
attaching to the stem, you can keep that
shape or you can make this rounded bell shape
where the flower attaches, which can also be quite interesting depending on the design that
you want to go for. Then you can play with
adding these statements. Maybe that's just something
else to think about. If you want to draw maybe
a three quarters view, then you can start by
squishing the side view, adding some of the
petals behind that, which gives more of
a three D feeling and more of an illusion
of perspective. So you can show just a tiny
bit of that flower or you can more of the other side. It's really up to you. And you can even show maybe a
bit of the inner center, which can be quite fun
to play with as well. Feel free to have a play around with some of these
different shapes here. See if you can
come up with maybe even some different
designs for me here, for different, you
can play around with different petal shapes and different arrangements
for these flowers. Thinking about the different
size of this inner circle, our different ways of
arranging these flowers. But hopefully that was
helpful if you are ready. Then let's move on
to the next lesson, where we will put our leaf and flower designs together to
draw some vines and stems.
5. Vines & Stems: Now we're ready to draw
some lines and stems. I'm just going to
start a new layer. I'll name this lines and stems. What we're going to do here
is we're just thinking about structuring our
plants in different ways, either three or five lines. They can be carving lines. If you want to draw a
little loop in them, that can be quite fun. You can also just draw a
straight line or a wavy line. Just get five evenly spaced
lines within your page. Personally, I'm actually
going to thicken these stems just by
drawing around them, roughly. I'm not worrying. If the line is a little
bit wobbly or anything, then I'm just going to raise that little bit to
enhance that look. Actually, I'm going
to do the same thing for all of my stems. You don't have to do
this, I'm just doing this because I think it
looks more fun. But it's not a necessity. I'm just looking back
at my leaf shapes. I'm going to choose
the leaf shape that I want for my first leaf. I think I'm going to choose
this heart shaped one. I'm also going to combine
it with a flower. I think to choose one of these more simple flowers to keep it simple To start with, I'm just going to place those leaf shapes
around the edge of this fine at randomized places. And I'm making some
smaller and some larger. I'm squishing some a
little bit to give a more sense of perspective. I'm also going to
overlap that stem, erase the bit that
I've overlapped. I'm trying to place
them randomly, not too evenly spaced out, but just enough to make it
seem natural and organic. Then I'm going to
attach them to the Vin. Then I'm going to
draw in the flowers. I'm just going to have these
floating beside the stems. Actually, I'm not
going to attach them, I'm just going to
draw in a few lines. You're in there to add
a bit more detail. Okay, There is my first plant, which I think looks
quite good and quite a simple method for this next one. I think I'm going to
make it into a flower. I'm going to add a
flower head at the top. I'm going to look back
at my flower shapes. I'm going to maybe choose
something like this, something from the side. I might give it a little
bit of perspective just to add a little bit
of interest there. I'm just adding on that
spikiness and a few stems. And then I'm adding some behind, which I think looks quite cool. It looks quite an
interesting flower. I want to give this some leaves. I think I might choose some
of the wavy long leaves, which look quite nice. I'm starting off with the wavy line and then I'm
drawing around that wavy line and just coming off the stem
at different intervals. Yeah, I really like that. I think that looks quite cool. For my next one, I'm
just going to use the selection tool and bring
it more into the middle. I think I'm going
to have a flower at the top of this one. I think I'm going to
make more of a ball shaped attachment and just draw that on. And for the leaf shapes, I think I'm going to go
with something with more of a rounded shape language. Then I'm going to
add in a few lines here and there for
this next one. I think I'm going to go
with the spikier leaves and I'm just placing them around the fine of
various random points. I'm going to add a flower
on this one as well. I think I'm going
to go with one of those circular ones here. Actually, I think
that's a bit too spiky. I'm going to add a flower here. It was a bigger circular one. And then for this last piece, let's see, I think I will add some of these, this long, bumpy style. For the longer leaves. I usually start off
without drawing a line and then drawing the shape
around the leaf in general, moving room for variation
within each leaf for the flower, I think I will
have this one coming down. I'll maybe adding a couple of extra petals just
for added interest. For most of these, I've just added the flower at
the end of the stem. But if you wanted to, you could always add flowers
within the stem. You might want to
add smaller versions of those same
flowers just coming out at random points, which be quite nice. You can try various things and see what you think
works with that. Moving on to the next exercise. We are going to be
drawing pottage plants.
6. Potted Plants: So let's just make a new layer. I will call this potted plants. What I'm going to do is just
draw a line, straight line. And keeping my pencil held down until that line
turns straight. I'm then going to
hold down my finger. This line will snap
to horizontal line. Then I'm just going to let go of both my finger and my pencil. Then I'm just going to draw some pot shapes
of various sizes. I'm basically just drawing two slightly angled
lines for the pot shape, then I'm drawing
a thin rectangle that's slightly angled lines
as well on the outside. It's fairly easy, but you can always improvise with these pop shapes as well. I'm going to draw just a
few of different sizes, maybe some that are bigger and a couple that
are smaller as well. Maybe I'll add another
smaller pot for a variety. I'm just going to fill
these pots with plants. I can make it up or I can go search for reference
in this pot, I want to have some
big fern like plants. I think I just started off
with a directional line. Then I'm just drawing
bold shapes around those. Using overlapping, we can create a feeling that this pot is
really filled with this plant. I'm also going to have some spilling over
the front of the pot, which just adds more dimension. And then I'm going to erase
everything behind that shape. I'll do another one overlapping, and then maybe just a couple
peering out from behind. You might want to add stems, like in the last lesson, just starting with directional
lines and then adding on leaf shapes and keeping it
quite loose and abstract. And we might want to add
some flowers as well. It can also just use one
shape to fill the pot and maybe have some
flowers coming out in this pot. I'm going to start
with the leaf shapes. I'm just drawing in
some big leaf shapes and I can have them overlapping the pot and also overlapping each other to give the sense
that it's really full. I can draw some
stems coming down. Then I can also just fill the rest of the pot with
some bumpy lines to suggest more leaf shapes
without actually drawing them in and defining them explicitly. There's just a few
different ways that you can play placing plants in pots. So you can start with lines, you can overlap leaves, which can be quite nice. You can start with a stem and then add your leaves
onto a structure. You can just use one shape and then add details
around that shape. Or just keep the
shape if you want to. Or you can start by drawing
the leaf shapes and then placing the stems and foliage around the leaf shapes. There's a lot of different
things you can do. You can start wherever makes
the most sense to you. I would encourage you here to play around a
different plant pots, different shapes of leaves, and see what you
can come up with different arrangements
of stylized plants. I'm also just going to add a
few lines to these leaves. Again, you can use specific
plants to inspire you. I've just made these up here. So you can do either whatever
feels the most fun to you. Okay, then let's move on to the next lesson where I'll
talk about drawing foliage.
7. Grass & Foliage: I'm just going to start a new
layer and I'm going to call this grass and foliage. This is more for
when I'm drawing scenes which have grass
and foliage in them, like baby trees
and bushes where I don't want to draw every
single part of the plant. I want to give the overall impression of the texture of it. I'm just going to draw
a few little boxes. Then I'll show you some
techniques that I use for bushes. I usually will draw a little
bumpy thing like that. Sometimes the lines are
a bit different and then they overlap each other. Then I might draw a little
hint of leaves in each. You can use different
styles of leaves. Again, it doesn't need to
be a standard leaf shape. Sometimes I just draw
a little lines or little dots just to give the impression that it's
not a smooth texture, that there is more,
a bit more to it. It's not just a flat texture. That's a really simple but effective technique that I use, especially for background
elements for grass. I usually add like maybe a few clumps of the grass and then some
lines for texture. You can always stylize the shape language of
the grass as well, depending on if you want
it to be really long grass or jagged grass and you
can mix and match that. You can also add in tiny
little shoots or flowers, maybe tree saplings just to
add a little bit of interest. That that's mainly, you can just have
a little practice now with different techniques. Maybe sometimes I will show some little
lines overlapping. But it depends on what
texture I want to go for. Again, I would recommend in your spare time to draw
some of these textures, you can either even just use lines or maybe dots together. You can really play around with patterns as well and repeating different shapes and
overlapping different things. You can also make little
patterns of flowers, which can be really
quite nice to look at. There's lots of options, lots of room to play around
with different stylizations. These are just a
few simple ones. I encourage you to explore that and see what you can
come up with as well. Okay, now that we
have done that, I think we're ready to move on.
8. Export & Upload: Okay, so that is the last of our exercises for this class. We have made quick studies. We've explored shape
language, leaf shapes, flower shapes, vines and stems, potted plants and
grass and foliage. If you want to take any of
these techniques further, maybe to create a
scene with lots of plants in it or a composition
of some kind or a pattern, then I would love to see
that if you want to share it with me in the
project section as well, for today, let's just finish off by exporting this artwork. We'll post it as a project. In the project section, what we can do is turn on
each layer individually. And go to the actions at the spanner icon in the top
left hand corner there. Make sure you're on share, can show this is either
a Jpeg or a PNG. I'm just going to save this as a Jpeg and then I need
to select Save Image, and it tells me that
export was successful. I'm going to do the
same thing for each of these layers and upload them all individually
in my class project. Then to upload your project, you'll need to be on desktop. Rather than the ipad. You can just head to the
Submit Project button in the Project and
Resources section of this class and just
press Submit Project, and it will ask you to
upload cover image. You can just choose
photo that you want to appear as the cover
adding project title. Then you can add more content
in the project description. If you go to the image icon
underneath, add more content. You can upload the rest of your drawings to your project and you can also write a
little comment about it. If you, if you want me
to be able to see it, then make sure that the project
privacy box is unchecked. Otherwise nobody else will be able to see it
apart from you. Then you can just press Publish, and that will
publish your project to the Projects and
Resources section. Then if you want to leave me a review after
you've done that, that would be fantastic.
9. Thank You: Thanks so much for
taking this class. I hope you've enjoyed
it and come away with some handy techniques
for drawing stylized and imaginative plants. If you're looking to push
your practice further, then you can check out my
other classes on the platform. This class would pair really
well with my drawing trees, landscapes or houses classes. But I also have a
couple of classes on drawing and
posing characters. If you're looking for
something a bit different, if you enjoyed the class, I'd love it if you
could leave me a review and let other students
know what to expect. I'd also really love to
see what you create. You can upload your drawings in the project section below. If you have any questions, you can leave a post in
the discussion section. And I'll get back
to you when I can. If you want to stay
updated on future classes, then you can follow me here on Skillshare or on Instagram
at Sara Holiday. Or you can also sign
up to my newsletter, which I'll link below. Thank you so much and I hope to see you in
a class again soon.
Sarah Holliday, Illustrator
