Drawing Botanicals: Practicing Leaves 🌿🍃 (Step-by-step guide - Week 19) (Patreon)

Hi everyone!! 🤗

For this week, we are focusing on drawing different types of leaves and exploring how you can simplify them into your illustrations 🌿✨

We will be working on a sketchbook spread filled with leaves, playing with different shapes, sizes, and ways of drawing them. This is a great way to build your own “leaf library” that you can use in future illustrations!

I created my own sketchbook spread for this week: some simple leaf shapes, some more detailed and difficult ones. It’s such a fun way to see how small changes in shape and color can completely change the look of a leaf!

You will find my step-by-step process, base layers, and final illustrations below, together with the materials I used 🥰

Plus! some extra tips on how to draw and simplify leaves in your illustrations!

Tips for drawing leaves 🌿

Start by thinking in simple shapes instead of details. Leaves don’t have to be complicated to look good! Here are some tips:

Begin with a basic shape (oval(s), circle(s))

Add a simple lines in the middle for the stem or vein

Don't add too many details. For example: a few lines can already suggest texture

Build up color in layers (light first, then darker tones on top)

Don't try to copy the leaf perfectly, it's more important to get the overall shape of the leaf right

Page 1

I used the following Tombow brush pens as a base layer:

Tombow 126 (Light olive)

For the second layer, I used the following Faber-Castell Pencils:

Faber-Castell 278 (Chrome Oxide Green)

Faber-Castell 283 (Burnt Siena)

And I used a white gel pen!

Page 2

I used the following Tombow brush pens as a base layer:

Tombow 126 (Light olive)

Tombow 772 (Dusty rose)

For the second layer, I used the following Faber-Castell Pencils:

Faber-Castell 278 (Chrome Oxide Green)

Faber-Castell 226 (Alizarin Crimson)

I wish you all lots of fun with this week's reference, and don't hesitate to ask me any questions or show your illustrations in the group chat 🤗

Celyn 🌸