Category: nature

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 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!

Spring Origami Flowers

Known as “Kusudama”, these beautiful flowers are simple to make and can be adapted for lots of occations.

You will need:

  • x5 sheets of origami paper per flower
  • x1 pipe cleaner
  • x1 lollipop stick
  • Glue stick

How to make your flower:

  1. Taking a 15x15cm or 10x10cm square of origami paper, with the wrong side up, fold it in half diagonally.
  2. Fold the outer tips inwards and upwards to meat the point at the top.
  3. Fold these flaps back down so that the long centre edge meets the outer shorter edge.
  4. Open this flap out and fold down to create a kite shape.
  5. Fold the top of the kite shape down and back up again as shown in the pictures.
  6. Fold the kite shape inward in half like below.
  7. Glue the left flap to the right flap to create your petal cone.
  8. Repeat 4 more times.
  9. Glue together with pipe cleaner twisted on itself to make a nodding head and glue this to the lollipop stick for its stalk.

Beaded Suncatcher

A few weeks back we decided to follow up our #30dayswild nature dreamcatcher craft from The Wildlife Trusts with a suncatcher.

The craft was for one of our Facebook art live shows, so I thought I would write a blog post with instructions on how to make your own.

What you need:

A sturdy stick to hang your beads around
Wire
Glass beads
Twine
Small pliers / wire cutters
Scissors

How to make your suncatcher:

  1. Cut 5 lengths of wire, x1 30cm, x2 25cm and x2 20cm
  2. Place a small bead about 2cm from the end of each wire, turn the wire back on itself and twist together.
  3. Thread each wire with your favourite glass beads, leaving 4cm to wrap around your stick.
  4. Arrange your wires: small, medium, long, medium, small, along your stick, around 3cm apart.
  5. Cut a length of garden twine around one and half to two times the length of your stick and tie it to either end of your stick.
  6. Hang your suncatcher in a window and enjoy.

Nature Dreamcatcher

As part of our #30dayswild activities from The Wildlife Trusts, we decided to follow one of their instructions that you can find here.

Making a your dreamcatcher is simple and fun. It’s also a great opportunity to get outdoors and explore nature. Go for a walk and collect natural materials to make your dreamcatcher with.

What you will need:

Three sturdy sticks
Garden twine
Natural materials to decorate – hag stones (stones with holes in), feathers, shells, leaves, flowers, grasses etc
Scissors

How to make your nature dream catcher:

  1. Arrange your sticks in a triangle and tie together with twine. Leave one with a long tail to hang.
  2. Create a pattern of your choice in the triangle with twine. It can be a simple or as complicated as you like.
  3. Once you’re happy with your twine, start decorating! You could also suspend some of your materials from pieces of twine from the bottom.
  4. Think about adding flowers for colour and herbs for fragrance.
  5. Hang your dreamcatcher and change out the fresh materials when they wilt.