In this tutorial, learn how to incorporate flowers and their color schemes into your illustrations!

Introduction

Hello, all! My name is Dreamer! Welcome! 

 

In this month’s tutorial, I will be showing you all how to incorporate flowers into your artwork! There are many things you should consider when putting them in your illustrations, and I’m looking forward to sharing these ideas with you! 

Now then, without further ado, let’s get started! 

Composition

Now, I know what you’re thinking:

 

“We want to know how to draw pretty flower illustrations! What does composition have to do with anything?”

 

Well, I’ll tell you! If you want to convey a powerful message and make an appealing illustration with flowers, it’s best to know how to incorporate them into the piece first! Planning things out, figuring out where things should go, what the mood is... this is an important foundation to a great illustration!

 

What do you want your mood to be? What do you want the viewer to feel coursing through their veins? Peace? Aggression? Happiness? Sadness? Love? Depending on what you want the overall mood of your illustration to be determines what flowers would come in handy for accenting your illustration! And that’s just what the flowers are: accents that help bring another definition of life and meaning to your pieces!

 

If you want a feeling of happiness, you may want to consider adding daffodils or dandelions to your illustration!

 

Want a feeling of purity and innocence? You could try lilies and daisies!

 

Love? Try roses!

 

Perhaps a feeling of danger or aggression? Try adding tiger lilies or azaleas!

 

Whatever you want the mood to be, research what flowers represent those types of moods and feelings and see how you can place them in your art! Shout out to all the websites I’ve used to decipher the meanings flowers can bring!

 

How you frame the character with the flowers can send an appealing message as well! You can have the flowers framing the character, so that the viewer’s eye is drawn to the person’s face. Or, with perspective, you could have the flowers at the bottom of the image, and petals blowing, bringing a flow of interest from the flowers to the character! Or still, you can have a contrast between empty space and flowers to bring focus on the character in between the two! It’s all up to you!

Composition Examples!

Example 1!

For this illustration’s composition, I wanted the flowers to be leading up to the character, so I had them frame his waist and torso, and I had petals flowing around his face, which was the focus of the piece! I wanted the feeling of aggression and danger... the aura of a villain. So, I added tiger lilies!

Example 2!

For this last example of composition, I wanted the character to be accented with the flowers. That way, they would be an emphasis of what kind of personality he has. Since he’s a shy, timid child, he has a pure, innocent demeanor. So, I had him cradling some baby’s breath flowers, and I added some baby’s breath bushes and lilies around him. I left some empty space at the top so that his face had nothing drowning it out.

The way you place things in your artwork can determine how appealing it will be! Make sure you consider these things heavily before diving into your illustration making process!

Color

Another thing to consider with your flowers is the color! Even if you want to use roses, the color you use for them can help compose a mood for your illustration! For this, you should understand the basic emotions associated with each color! 

 

Red is usually associated with anger, passion, and danger.

 

Orange is often associated with optimism and creativity.

 

Yellow is often associated with happiness.

 

Green can be associated with growth and healing.

 

Blue is associated with calm and peace.

 

Purple is associated with wealth and royalty.

 

White can be associated with purity and innocence.

 

Black is associated with death and power.

 

Think of these color associations when composing your illustration! 

Example!

Let’s see this as an example! Here, I decided to use roses. Now, I originally stated roses represent love, right? But the color for these particular roses is red. Which means it can be associated with danger if I wanted to use it as such! I also added black roses to add to the emotions to be conveyed in this piece. Since this character is a villain and craves power, black roses are good to convey that!

 

Red and black make a potent mix for a foreboding vibe, don’t you think?

Tip!

Remember that you can bring or take away saturation, add contrast, or use different colors for certain things in your illustration depending on what you want your viewer’s focus to be on!

Final Tip! Have Fun With It!

Now, I know this sounds a bit vague, but if you just let loose of your worries and have fun with your drawing, you will be able to create beautiful and believable flowers! Now, if you don’t know what a flower looks like, you will still need to use a reference… but the more you get comfortable with drawing them, the more you will be able to simplify the shapes so that you can draw them efficiently, but with the same effects! Let me give an example! Roses are basically round-ended macaroni noodles or crescent moons! Just draw a bunch of them in the shape of a circle! For wisteria, I draw a bunch of puffy circles going downwards in direction! They look like puffy grape bunches, so I keep that shape in mind when designing them!

 

As long as you can associate certain shapes with certain flowers, you will be able to draw them with ease! And, that can go into other aspects of art, too; simplifying the shapes makes things easier to understand, and more efficient to draw! And, the more you draw it, the more it will become like muscle memory to you!

 

Keep going! You can do it!

Tip!

Don’t draw every single flower in the far distance of your drawing! As the view gets further away, it’s okay to use overall shapes and blobs! If the shapes are drawn naturally and accurately, the eye will still interpret them as a field of flowers!

Outro

Congratulations! You’ve just learned how to compose floral assortments for your illustrations, and how the colors of such can affect the feeling of the art! I’m so proud of you!! 

 

Experiment with different ways you can make your illustrations; never be afraid to try new techniques that will upgrade your art! Just remember to credit all the artists you’ve studied! Shout out to all the ones I’ve studied and observed! 

 

I wish you all the best with your illustrations! Until next time!