Category: drawing

How to Draw… a Flower #4

A Three Dimensional (3D) Flower

In this weeks blog we are continuing with more flower drawings.

We are in the last week of The Wildlife Trusts #30dayswild, and we love celebrating the rich habitats and wildlife we have on our doorstep here at Heathlands.

To draw your 3D flower…

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil
  • A pen
  • An eraser / rubber

How to draw a wildflower – cow parsley:

  1. Using your pencil, begin by drawing an oval.
  2. Draw a curved line under this as shown, to create a “bowl” or “goblet” shape.
  3. Add a smaller bowl shape to the bottom of this.
  4. Draw parallel lines down from the bottom bowl to create a stem for your flower.
  5. Draw the flowers “sepals”. The part of the flower between the stem and the petals.
  6. Draw your individual petals, following the curve of the bowl shape. Do the foreground petals first and add the background one after.
  7. Add “stamens” growing out from the centre / inside of your flower.
  8. Complete your drawing by going over your finished sketch with a fine liner. Allow this to dry for 5-10 minutes before rubbing out your pencil lines.
  9. And you are done! You can add colour now if you wish.
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw… Flower #3

Flower Heads from Different Angles

For our final mini tutorial on how-to-draw flowers, we are looking at how we can change the perspective of our drawing, through simple changes in our drawing technique.

We hope you are all enjoying the #30dayswild activities that are being shared on the Heathlands Facebook Page and we would love to see any of the creative things you have been up to.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil
  • A rubber
  • A pen

How to draw a flower heads from different angles:

  1. We are going to start by drawing our flowers first this time. Begin by drawing two (2) simple flowers with long petals like in picture one (1).
  2. Next draw a third flower, this time draw the petals at the top and bottom a little shorter, and the petals on one side a lot shorter.
  3. For our final two (2) flowers, draw the centre as “little domes” and only draw petals coming off the side or off the bottom. This way the are facing a different direction, sideways or upwards!
  4. Finally connect your flowers with some stems and add foliage like we did in our first flower tutorial which you can find here: How to Draw… Flower #1
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw… Flower #2

A Petalled Flower with Lobed Leaves

Welcome to our latest “hot-to-draw” mini tutorial! These instructions and video’s are all about improving our drawing skills and thinking differently about the simple things we can draw to make them even better.

This week sees the start of our #30dayswild activities with The Wildlife Trusts here at Heathlands, so drawing flowers seems very appropriate!

This is the second in our flower series and this time we are thinking about how to draw petals in an alternative way.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil
  • A rubber
  • A pen

How to draw a petalled flower:

  1. Begin by drawing two (2) stems connected together like a long U shape, flaring out slightly at the top.
  2. Pencil in two outwardly curvy triangles at the top of each stem.
  3. Add a domed top to each triangle and make a smaller triangle at the bottom of each with a line. You can also add extra stems and flowers if you wish.
  4. Draw long, curved, upside-down triangles to form the petals of your flower heads. The colour in the bottom triangle.
  5. Complete your flower by adding long lobbed leaves and foliage!
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw… Flower #1

A Wildflower – Cow Parsley

Next in our mini-series of “how-to-draw” tutorials, is flowers!

Here at Heathlands we are blessed with an amazing 8 & 1/2 acres of woodland, pasture, gardens and wetland. We have a huge variety of wildflowers, we are cataloguing these on our Facebook here: Wildflower Post

It is also June, which means we have started our #30dayswild activities here at Heathlands. You can join in at home by going to The Wildlife Trusts website.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil or a pen

How to draw a wildflower – cow parsley:

  1. Begin by drawing two (2) stems. One main stem and a secondary stem coming off the first.
  2. Add six (6) curved stalks radiating out from the end of each stem. The centre two (2) stalks should be the longest and the outer two (2) the shortest.
  3. Draw two (2) or three (3) foliage stalks coming off the main stems.
  4. Add delicate feather-like foliage to the stalks from step three (3).
  5. Complete your wildflower by adding little “stars” * to the tips of your flower stalks.
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw a Knotwork Wreath

Step by step instructions for an interlacing wreath

We have bee concentrating on our drawing skills at Heathlands lately and this post is no different.

This time we are making things a little more complicated with a knotwork wreath, made of two interlocking or interlacing circles.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil
  • A pen
  • Something round or a compass
  • A ruler

How to draw a your knotwork wreath:

  1. Begin by drawing a circle.
  2. Make 12 evenly spaced point around your circle. Much like the points on a clock.
  3. At each point, draw an arrow. Your arrows should all point in the same direction.
  4. Inside each arrow create a little diamond.
  5. From inside your arrowheads, draw curved lines to the previous arrow and finish them parallel to them. See images for help. Repeat all the way round.
  6. From the open ends of your arrows, draw more curved lines, meeting up with the diamonds of the previous arrowheads. Again see images for help. Repeat until complete!

You can colour or decorate your wreath as you wish. I have yet to experiment, however, I believe that if you use an odd number of arrows to start with, you will end up with one continuous interlacing circle, rather than two!

Steps 1, 2 & 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Complete

You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw a Heart #3

Heart Wreath with Cursive Text

Our current series of mini drawing films is concentrating on how to draw hearts. For this how-to we are learning how to draw a shamrock of knotwork hearts.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • Coloured pencil or a crayon in green
  • Metallic marker pen

How to draw your layered hearts:

  1. Begin by drawing a large “scribbly” heart with you green crayon or pencil.
  2. Next add lobe shaped leaves all the way around your heart.
  3. Finally add your desired message over the top of you wreath with a metallic marker. You could print out a font to trace or draw your lettering in pencil lightly and go over in marker when you are happy.
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw a Heart #2

Heart Shamrock Knotwork

Welcome to a new mini art instruction!

Our current series of mini drawing films is concentrating on how to draw hearts. For this how-to we are learning how to draw a shamrock of knotwork hearts.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil or a pen

How to draw your layered hearts:

  1. Begin by drawing four heart with the bottom points, pointing at each other.
  2. From the bottom of each heart, draw short lines on the same path as one of the side of the hearts pointing towards the heart counter clockwise to it, then draw a small square in the centre.
  3. Draw parallel lines to the right hand side of each heart joining the square in the centre.
  4. Repeat step 3 for the left hand sides.
  5. Your heart knotwork shamrock is complete!
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw a Heart #1

Layered Hearts

In our latest set of mini art films we are learning how to draw hearts in different ways. Our first film shows you how to draw a series of four (4) hearts that are layered and interconnected.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil or a pen
  • Coloured felt tips / pencils / crayons

How to draw your layered hearts:

  1. Begin by drawing a heart, you can do this in pencil first, or go straight in with your colouring medium.
  2. Draw a second, smaller heart, down and to the right of the first.
  3. Next draw a line with a fine liner or black felt tip, the shape you are drawing is the left side of a heart. It should start in the middle of the large heart and end below it.
  4. Repeat step three but drawing the right side of a heart. You should start above the small heart and the lines should join at the bottom.
  5. To complete your drawing, from the left-hand “half a heart” begin drawing the other side and as you come down loop the line in a figure of eight (8) back up and over itself to form the right hand side of the “half a heart” on the right.

You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw… Star #3

3D Knotwork Star

In our latest mini video we are learning to draw another star. This week we are doing something a little more complicated, a three dimensional (3D) knotwork star.

Each week we will present a new shape, idea or technique, with the intention of building our skills and having fun at the same time.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil or a pen

How to draw a simple knotwork star:

  1. Begin by drawing a series of five (5) lines or “spokes”, radiating out from each other, with a very small pentagon in the centre.
  2. Pick one of your five (5) spokes to start with, then draw a line parallel to the next spoke clockwise from the top, then another line from the middle. Close these two (2) new lines off and draw another line down towards the the next spoke round again. This can be seen in picture two (2)
  3. Repeat step two (2) until you have completed your star!
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

How to Draw… Star #2

Complex Five Pointed Star

This is the second in our new mini series on how to draw.

Each week we will be presenting a new shape, idea or technique, with the intention of building our skills and having fun at the same time.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • A pencil or a pen

How to draw a complex five pointed star:

Follow these four easy steps to draw your star…

  1. Begin by drawing three (3) intersecting lines. They should cross each other about 1/3 from the centre point.
  2. Add a further two (2) lines so that you have five (5) short “spokes” & five (5) long.
  3. Outline or join up your ten (10) spokes.
  4. Your star is complete and ready to colour in if you wish.
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You can watch our video tutorial here:

Drawing with a Difference #3

We are continuing with our new Drawing with a Difference series today, promoting the idea of drawing without traditional mediums or tools.

For this instalment we are exploring pixel art further, by using paper collage as our drawing method.

You can find our live video here:

https://www.facebook.com/Heathlands.Cumbria/videos/738797261074582

What you will need:

  • Colourful paper cut into equal sized squares
  • Card to paste your collage to
  • A glue stick
  • Squared paper
  • Pencils or felt tips to plan your design

How to make your pixel art collage:

  1. Plan out your design using the squared paper and felt tips. You can always use google for inspiration!
  2. Cut enough squares of equal size to complete your artwork.
  3. Find the centre of your design, then mark the centre of your card.
  4. Starting with the centre 4 squares, begin gluing your design.
  5. Continue working outwards until you are done!

Drawing with a Difference #2

To follow on from our first drawing with a difference session we recorded a short video of continuous line drawing, but with a difference!

Instead of using traditional drawing tools, we played with PVA and wool.

What you will need:

  • Slightly watered down PVA glue
  • Pasting brush for glue
  • Colourful yarn, wool or string
  • Colourful cards
  • Scissors
  • A glue stick

How to make your continuous line drawing:

  1. Create a background for you picture using coloured card and your glue stick. We made a very simple landscape.
  2. Paste PVA over the entire area you intend to draw on.
  3. Cut lengths of wool and draw your shapes, subject or objects by laying the wool into the glue.
  4. Your fingers may get messy, if you are struggling to not lift the wool by accident as you lay it, use the end of a pencil or paintbrush to help position the wool.
  5. Adding extra glue on top may also help.
  6. Once dry, paste over the entire picture again.
  7. Your picture is done!

You can find the video instructions here:

Drawing with a Difference #1

Here at Heathlands we love to explore new and exciting ways we can express ourselves with Arts & Crafts.

With this in mind we are starting a new series of live demonstrations, short videos and blog posts, for you to have a go at “drawing with a difference”. So, what do we mean by this? Quite simply we mean drawing, with anything but pencil and paper.

Our first session went live yesterday, Monday 27th February 2023 and the link to the video can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/Heathlands.Cumbria/videos/1359988764543889

Drawing with a Difference Session #1 – LEGO!!!

The inspiration for the first of our sessions is pixel art, a method for creating images with small squares or pixels.

For this activity we decided it would be really fun to use Lego Dots, as our pixels as they are movable and easy to use. We also decided to draw a polar bear, Monday was international polar bear day!

What you will need:

  • A Lego base plate
  • Lego Dots
  • Your imagination!

How to make your dot / pixel picture:

  1. First you need to decide what you are going to “draw”.
  2. select your colours and start with key features or if you prefer an outline of your idea.
  3. Fill in your work, moving your pixels if needed.
  4. Repeat as much as you like!

Below are some examples of pixel pictures we have made, including a few step by step images of the polar bear.

Step by step polar bear, you can also find a stop-motion here: https://youtu.be/3QcqkYIWqNU

Secret Valentines

If like us you are a romantic at heart this fun and easy Valentine’s Day card is a whimsical craft that you can easily do at home!

Wax relief or resist, is a simple and versatile technique where a white crayon or oil pastel is used to draw “invisibly” on white paper, then painted over to reveal the design. It is very important that it is an oil pastel and NOT chalk.

For this craft we thought having the recipient reveal the design for themselves was a fun and unusual quirk for a card.

You will need:

  • An A5 piece of white card or watercolour paper, folded in half
  • An A6 envelope
  • A white wax crayon or white oil pastel
  • Water soluble colouring pencils
  • A pen to write your message inside

How to make your card:

  1. Using your crayon or oil pastel, draw your design heavily onto the front of the card.
  2. With your water soluble pencils, colour in randomly around your design. Be careful not to colour over the crayon or pastel. You may need to check where you drew but tilting the card to see the design.
  3. Write a message inside, including instructions to “colour in” the front with water.
  4. Deliver your card!

How to Draw a Turtle

Today is #worldturtleday, so we thought we would do a simple how to draw instruction for our Arts Live session over on Facebook.

The video will be linked below.

What is World Turtle Day?

World turtle day is an observance day on the 23rd of May every year to raise awareness of Turtles and the challenges that they face; climate change, plastic pollution and habitat destruction for example. To find out more visit https://www.worldturtleday.org/

What you will need to draw your turtle:

  • Plain paper
  • Pencil
  • Black felt tip
  • Rubber / eraser
  • Something to colour with

How to draw your turtle:

  1. Using the template below, trace your shapes together.
  2. Outline with black pen and rub out pencil lines.
  3. Colour your turtle in!