How To Draw Different Bushes (& Leafy Patterns) (Patreon)

Hello my beautiful flowers!

Since I was talking about illustrating backgrounds last week I thought it would be nice to show you more in-depth how to draw different types of bushes and some ideas for adding leafy patterns to them because they're super handy for drawing simple outdoor scenes.

I use these all the time in my own illustrations and they’re super simple to draw, plus you can add as much detail as you like to jazz them up a bit! I actually often draw really similar bushes throughout a whole scene but by changing the shape, leaf pattern and colour of them you can end up with a surprising amount of variety.

First let’s quickly take a look at some simple bush shapes.

Often bushes are wider at the base than they are at the top and are quite rounded, but you can also have bushes that are narrower at the bottom or are off ground completely because they have a branch structure (I guess this is more of a shrub?).

An easy way to experiment with making different bushes is to draw some simple shapes (like a semi-circle or oval) as a base and then see if you can draw your bushy shape on top of that.

Spotty Round Bush

A super common shape that I draw in my illustrations is this round bush. Here’s how to draw it:

Start with a big, lumpy shape that’s widest at the bottom and comes to a high point in the middle. I often draw 5 ‘bumps’ (or ‘c’ shaped curves) but you can use as many as you like.

Now I like to add a few more bumpy lines in the middle of the bush to show us that it has a bushy texture. It’s nice to vary them so that they aren’t all the same, and this will make it feel more organic.

Next, we’ll give this bush some spots and dots for a bit of extra texture. This is totally optional and just something that I do in my style.

And that’s it - I told you they were simple!

Tall Spiky Bush

I also like to sometimes draw bushes that are much taller and rather than being soft, round shapes have a bit more spikiness to them (without being properly pointy).

Similar to the last bush, we’ll start with a bumpy shape made of ‘c’ shaped curves, but this time we’ll make the bush a lot taller and stretch out those bumps so that they’re longer. It can be a tiny bit narrower at the bottom than it is in the middle.

Now we’ll add some texture by adding more bumps in the middle. Some will be just one bump on their one, some can be a couple stuck together to form an ‘m’ shape; the key thing is to have variety.

For a little extra pattern, we can add some short lines around the bush as well.

And that’s it, another bush finished!

Branchy Shrub

I always quite like to see the branch structure of a plant, even though it doesn’t really make any sense that we can see it through the leaves!

Start with a simple branch structure with as many branches as you like. You’ll want one main stem coming roughly down the centre that all of the others can branch off from, making the lines skinnier as they keep branching out.

Beginning almost at the base of the stem, draw a very bumpy circle (roughly) all the way around the branch structure.

Now we can add some texture with lots of bumps just like we did with the previous two.

And it’s finished!

Extra Pattern IdeasThere are lots of ways you can add leafy patterns to your bushes! I’d recommend having fun experimenting with it, but you can use these ideas to get you started. I often either use simple bumps or a branch structure for my bushes, and sometimes I add more detail by also giving them spots or some cute flowers!

So I hope some of these tips have given you ideas for your own bushes and maybe can help give you some confidence with drawing background plants. Even if you’re not a beginner, it’s sometimes nice to revisit these things and see if you can develop new ideas or patterns for things that you’re familiar with.

Enjoy! 🥰🌿