How to Draw a Floral Design – Create an Easy Flower Design

Flowers make the most beautiful addition to everything, whether you arrange flowers in a vase or add a floral sketch to a picture or card! In today’s drawing tutorial, we are going to show you how to draw a floral design from the very beginning. In just 22 easy steps, you will learn how to make your floral design drawing as realistic as possible, and be left with a drawing that is just as gorgeous as the real thing! Select the drawing supplies that you will be using and let’s get started with our floral design for drawing!

Steps to Create a Simple Flower Drawing Design

Join us and learn how to draw a floral design step-by-step! In our tutorial, we cover everything from the basic elements of drawing this easy floral drawing design, to the full coloring process so that you will be left with a beautiful drawing. 

Our tutorial is great for both beginners and professional artists, and it can be completed on paper or on a graphics tablet!

The above collage shows each of the 22 steps taken to achieve the final result of a simple flower drawing design and demonstrates what your floral design drawing should look like every step of the way. Follow along and you too will be able to draw and paint your own easy flower design drawing!

Once you have gathered the supplies that you will be using, find somewhere comfortable and quiet to sit, and let us begin learning flower designs to draw!

Step 1: Draw the Seed Pods

To start our easy flower design drawing, we will need to draw the seed pods that represent our main flowers. Working out from the center of your drawing area, evenly space these two ovals. One must be drawn in the top left corner of the page, while the other must be drawn in the bottom right corner.

Step 2: Draw the Petals of Your Flowers

Once the two seed pods have been drawn, we can work on adding the petals for our main flowers. Surrounding each seed pod, draw the petals of your flowers, making sure to sketch them quite large as the others flowers will center around them. 

On the bottom flower, draw your petals from a side-angle view, as they should be facing out of the page.

Step 3: Add More Seed Pods to Your Illustration

We can now add more seed pods to our simple flower drawing design, as these will be centered around our two main flowers. Around each of these flowers, draw a group of smaller seed pods. Remember to leave some space between each seed pod, and scatter them randomly around the main flowers.

Step 4: Outline the Smaller Flowers

The smaller seed pods that you drew in the previous step represent the smaller flowers that will be added to our flower design drawing. Around each of these little pods, begin to draw smaller flower petals at different angles.

For the smaller flowers, you can choose any floral designs to draw.

Step 5: Sketch the Branches

Now that our first two groups of flowers have been drawn, we can work on sketching the flower branches in our illustration. Between both groups of flowers, draw some curving branches and leaves on either side, connecting each group. Your drawing should resemble an incomplete circle now.

Step 6: Add in the Final Group of Small Flowers

We will now be drawing the final group of flowers in our easy flower design drawing. Draw a batch of small seed pods around the flowers already drawn, adding in some small petals to these pods. When selecting which floral design for drawing at this step, make sure that these are the smallest flowers out of all the batches.

These last flowers should be placed between the larger flowers and branch leaves.

Step 7: Apply the First Coat of Color to Your Flower Design Drawing

Now that all of the drawings have been completed, we can add our first layer of color to our flower design drawing! Using a regular paintbrush and a shade of bright orange paint, carefully paint the petals of the largest flower.

Step 8: Color the Branches and Leaves

Moving on to the branches and leaves, select a shade of green to color this section. Using a regular paintbrush and the paint color that you have chosen, evenly paint the branches and leaves, making sure to paint within the lines.

You can select either a light shade or a dark shade of green for this section.

Step 9: Add Color to the Medium Flowers

Continuing with adding color to your easy flower design drawing, we will now be painting the medium flowers in your sketch. Using a small paintbrush and a light shade of pink, paint the petals of the medium flowers. If you don’t want to use pink, you can choose any other color that you like!

Step 10: Add Color to the Smallest Flowers

The last section that needs its first coat of color is the smallest flowers in the entire drawing. With a very sharp paintbrush, select a shade of red paint and evenly color these flower petals. Again, if you would like to use a different color, that is completely up to you.

A fine paintbrush will help you to neatly paint these small flowers.

Step 11: Color the Seed Pods

Now that all of our flower petals have been colored in, it is time to add some paint to the seed pods. With a small paintbrush and some dark gray paint, color the seed pods of the largest flowers. Moving on to the medium-sized flowers, take another small paintbrush and a shade of yellow to paint these pods. Finally, with a sharp paintbrush, paint the seed pods of the smallest flowers black.

Step 12: Apply a Second Coat of Color to Your Drawing

We can now work on adding our secondary coat of paint to our simple flower drawing design! Focusing on the largest flowers first, take a soft paintbrush and some yellow paint to gently apply fine brush strokes within each of the orange petals.

When adding this layer, make sure that your strokes flow outwards and that your first color coat is still somewhat visible.

Step 13: Contour Your Flower Design Drawing

At this stage of our tutorial, we will be adding some contouring to our illustration. Using a soft paintbrush and a shade of orange paint, apply several brush strokes between the edges and curves of each petal on the large flowers. This will help to add structure to the petal, as well as emphasize it. Switching to a clean paintbrush, gently blend over the petals to create a smooth fading effect between the orange and yellow colors.

Step 14: Shade the Branches and Leaves

We will now be adding some shading to our flower design drawing. With a sharp paintbrush and a darker shade of green, apply some brush strokes within each leaf to create some texture. Don’t forget to include the center leaf line here!

Continue this step by using a soft paintbrush and a darker green to shade each branch as well, making sure that the first coat of your branches and leaves is still visible.

Step 15: Highlight the Branches and Leaves 

The next thing to do in our simple flower drawing design is to add some highlights to the branches and leaves. With a sharp paintbrush and a combination of white and bright green paint, apply some light texture lines inside each branch and leaf to enhance these highlighted areas. Finish up by using a smaller paintbrush and white paint to add a soft highlight to the edges of the larger leaves. 

Step 16: Shade the Medium Flowers of Your Flower Design Drawing

We now need to add some shading to our medium flowers in our drawing. With a soft and small paintbrush, select dark gray paint and gently apply some soft shading inside each petal of the medium-sized pink flowers.

No matter what color you have painted your medium-sized flowers, you will be using a dark gray color to add some shading.

Step 17: Highlight the Medium Flowers

After adding some shading to the medium-sized flowers, we also need to add some highlights. Using a sharp paintbrush and a darker shade of pink, gently apply hairline brush strokes within each petal to enhance the texture lines. Switching to a soft paintbrush and some white paint, apply spots of highlights onto the edges of each petal of the medium flowers. 

Step 18: Add Shading to the Smallest Flowers

The last section of the simple flower design drawing that needs shading is the smallest flowers. With a soft paintbrush and some black paint, gently apply some shading to each of the red petals, making sure to stay within the fine lines. 

Complete this step by using a soft paintbrush and some light pink paint to add a touch of brightness to areas.

Step 19: Create Some Detail for the Seed Pods

Focusing on the seed pods, we will now be adding some detail to these. With a sharp paintbrush and a combination of yellow and red paint, apply spots of each color inside the seed pods of the largest flowers. To finish, take a soft paintbrush and black paint to shade the seed pods. Switching to a sharp paintbrush and a combination of green, black, and orange paint, fill the seed pods of the medium flowers with several dots of each color.

Step 20: Finalize the Pink Flowers

In this step, we will begin to finalize our entire flower design drawing by first going back to the medium-sized flowers. Take a small paintbrush and a shade of peach paint, and gently add a soft fade to the edges of each seed pod.

Do this for all of the seed pots of the medium-sized flowers.

Step 21: Finalize the Orange Flowers

In the second-last step, we will be finalizing the orange flowers of our illustration. With a sharp paintbrush and some white paint, apply several fine brush strokes onto each petal of the large flowers, making sure that these strokes flow outwards. Finish up this step by using a fine paintbrush and black paint to add a hairline coat around each seed pod.

Step 22: Finalize Your Entire Flower Design Drawing

In the final step, take a sharp paintbrush and the corresponding colors of each section to trace over the outlines of the flower, leaves, and branches. Remember to include any inner texture lines when completing this step. This will create a clean and seamless final result.

Once this is finished, you will be left with a beautiful flower design drawing that has no visible outlines at all!

Well done, you have just learned some easy flower designs to draw! Now that you have mastered all of the steps, you can come back to this tutorial at any time to create a variety of floral designs for drawing. We hope that you enjoyed our tutorial on how to draw a floral design today, and that you will join us again for more easy and exciting drawing guides!

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Create a Realistic Flower Design Drawing?

Creating a flower design drawing might appear complicated at first, as there can be so many different flower types included, but the process is actually quite simple! In our easy flower design drawing tutorial, we carefully explain each step needed to create your drawing so that by the time you reach the end, you will be left with a gorgeous illustration! If you are nervous about your floral designs to draw, go through our tutorial at your own pace, rereading and redoing any steps that might take longer.

Must I Choose Specific Floral Designs to Draw?

When learning how to draw a floral design, you can select any flower you wish! Whether you prefer roses to peonies, or sunflowers to tulips, there is no limitation on which flowers to draw! If you follow along with our tutorial above, you will learn how to draw the specific flowers that we have chosen. However, feel free to let your creativity run wild and change the colors to anything that you’d like! After all, this is your own flower design drawing.

Matthew Matthysen( Drawing and Painting Artist )

Matthew Matthysen is an educated multidisciplinary artist and illustrator. He successfully completed his art degree at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, majoring in art history and contemporary drawing. The focus of his thesis was to explore the philosophical implications of the macro and micro-universe on the human experience. Matthew uses diverse media, such as written and hands-on components, to explore various approaches that are on the border between philosophy and science.

Matthew organized various exhibitions before and during his years as a student and is still passionate about doing so today. He currently works as a freelance artist and writer in various fields. He also has a permanent position at a renowned online gallery (ArtGazette) where he produces various works on commission. As a freelance artist, he creates several series and successfully sells them to galleries and collectors. He loves to use his work and skills in various fields of interest.

Matthew has been creating drawing and painting tutorials since the relaunch in 2020. Through his involvement with artincontext.org, he has been able to deepen his knowledge of various painting mediums. For example, watercolor techniques, calligraphy and lately digital drawing, which is becoming more and more popular.

Learn more about Matthew Matthysen and the Art in Context Team.