Flowers always cheer you up, give smiles and positive emotions. Due to their variety of colors, they look great as elements of landscape and interior design. However, it is far from always possible to use fresh flowers, for example, tulips, to decorate a room. In this case, they can always be depicted on paper, for example, using watercolor. In this case, tulips can be drawn with a simple pencil and brushes. How to do it step by step?
What is the best way to draw: from nature or improvise?
Before you move to the main stage of drawing with paints, decide for yourself whether it will be a drawing from nature or you prefer to come up with your own floral arrangement. Accordingly, in the first case, you need to purchase or pick a bouquet of tulips in advance , put them in a vase and create an interesting drapery. For this purpose, you can use a beautiful piece of fabric, a neckerchief, a towel, etc., place the vase in a suitable place and start creating a sketch.
If you plan to draw tulips in watercolor at random, for clarity, you can find their image on postcards and photographs. In this case, you will only need to place a sample of the picture close to you and begin to sketch it on a piece of paper.
What tools are needed for drawing?
Ready to create an artistic masterpiece? Then for drawing you will need the following tools:
- a blank album sheet (you can also use professional watercolor paper);
- board for drawing or any hard surface (table, book, folder);
- well sharpened simple pencil and eraser;
- brushes (ideally these are round brushes No. 2, 3 and 5).
After all this is at your fingertips, you can begin to draw tulips in watercolor. How to do it?
Step 1: make a pencil sketch
Take a sheet of paper and attach it to a wooden plank, or lay it on any hard surface. Next, take a simple pencil and an eraser. The next step is to create a pencil sketch. To do this, just pressing on the pencil, select the upper and lower plane of the sheet, the middle.
Suppose you draw tulips in watercolor. In this case, the flowers will be in a beautiful vase. So, first select the place on the sheet where it will be located. Measure the approximate place for the vessel and flowers. Next, draw a large oval at the place of the vase, draw several curved lines from it (these will be the stems of the tulips), draw circles (or ovals) on each of them and draw two lines for the leaves.
Step 2: shape the pencil sketch
Before you draw tulips in watercolor, give them a more understandable shape. To do this, we will work on each element of the picture separately. Let's start with a vase. At the first stage, we divide our empty oval in half vertically and horizontally. Then we outline the top and bottom.
At the next stage, we draw with a pencil three horizontally located ovals: above, in the middle of the vase and in the region of its bottom. In this case, you should pay attention to the dimensions of your vase: it has a thin or thick and wide neck, expands or narrows down. We take as a basis a standard vase with a narrow neck. On how to draw tulips with watercolors, we will describe further.
From the base of the upper oval, draw two lines (one on each side). We connect them together, forming a kind of sharp corner. Inside it, draw another small flat oval. At the same time, do not forget that all the extra lines will be erased, so you do not need to push too much and aim. The same applies to the sharp corner and ovals, which will be eliminated when you form the neck of our future vase.
Watercolor tulips in stages: draw the middle and bottom of the vase
The next step is to draw the middle and bottom of the vase. To do this, we return to our oval in the neck area and from it we draw two gracefully curved lines to another oval located in the middle of the vase, and from it down the vessel.
At the same time, we should get something similar to a heart, but without a notch in the middle and too narrow an acute angle from below. Now it remains only to draw the contours of the vase and erase the excess auxiliary lines with an eraser.
Step 3: draw tulips with a pencil
After the full sketch of the vase is ready, you can begin to draw the tulips themselves. Suppose you plan to draw 5-7 flowers. In this case, they do not have to be of the same type. You can draw, for example, a few opened and a couple of closed buds. If you add such a variety to your picture, you get very realistic tulips. Watercolors can only emphasize their shape and color.
So, if this is a bud, then our oval is slightly narrowed down and pulled up with a pencil. On both sides, draw strips along the entire bud and erase excess lines. If your flower is open, then each petal will need to be worked on individually.
Attention! When creating tulip drawings in watercolor, pay attention to the varieties of the flowers depicted. For example, some species have six petals, and they are arranged in two layers. Others have five, and they all have only one layer.
To start drawing the petals is the axis of symmetry located in the middle of each of them. Draw a similar axis in our oval, “pull” it (as in the case of the aforementioned bud) and remove the excess. From the top of the oval, draw a small line (approximately 1-1.5 cm long) up.
Mentally divide the resulting pattern in its horizontal plane in half, put on both sides at a barely noticeable point, first put a pencil in one of them and draw an arcuate strip to the end of the elongated strip coming from the top of the first oval, then repeat the same with the other side. It should be a small oval in a large oval. Then we draw incomplete petals that are hidden behind the two main ones. One flower is ready. Similarly, we draw the rest. Next, we need to draw stems and leaves and get a watercolor. Do not forget to circle the tulips. This will help in the future when coloring.
And remember, your flowers should not be too big, as they will look unnatural.
Step 4: draw the stems and leaves of the tulips
The next step is to draw the stems. To do this, draw clear lines, starting from the base of the neck of the vase and ending with the bottom of the tulips. Draw additional lines from the stems. It will be leaves. In the middle of each of them draw a vertical strip. Move everything with a pencil. And finally, let's move on to painting the resulting sketch.
Step 5: colorize the drawing with paints
To do this, take paints, brushes and draw water into a jar, glass or any other container. Then you need to determine the lightest places in the picture and the darkest. It is necessary to start decorating a picture with light tones. They need to be painted over with light green (buds and petals) and light pink (leaves). Look at the picture. Pay attention to those places where there will be dark areas (shadows).
Most often, the shadow falls on the inside of the tulip petals. It is on them that pink and green paint should be applied in two layers. Further, the shadow area should be gradually darkened. To do this, first apply a bright red color on the inside of the petals, and then a darker burgundy. Yellow tulips, first paint in yellow, and then draw red streaks. Leaves and stems are drawn in the same way: where the shadow from the petals and neighboring flowers should drop on them, make it darker.
After the flowers, paint the vase, not forgetting about its lighter and darker areas, and also make a suitable background. This is how tulips are painted in watercolor. Phasing them is much easier and much more convenient. Now you know how to do it.