How to Draw a Small Flower Bouquet — Step by Step

With three flowers at slightly different heights, composition becomes more of an issue than detailed rendering. At this scale, the three flower heads make a loose triangle and their stems come together in a much smaller area. You have already learned to make a rough guide for the cup of the rose and the shallow oval of the daisy. These should be used to reserve enough space for each flower for subsequent detailing. Planning lines can cross at this stage, but one guide should not fill almost all of another.

The rose consists of 3 parts: center, middle and outside. The small opening in the center should be relatively small in comparison to the rest of the flower, while the broader outside faces make it appear partly open. At each overlap, keep the front edge continuous and stop the covered edge behind it. Remember, a single tangled up spiral cannot portray all of these faces.

The smaller tulip behind the rose uses the first lesson's construction: front, side and back faces gathered into a single upright cup. As for the base, try to have all the petal(s) gather toward one point. The hidden parts still belong to that cup, but stop the visible lower edge where the rose covers it.

A daisy viewed at a shallow angle is more than an oval center. The whole petal ring is viewed at the same shallow angle. The far side of the daisy will appear to be more compressed than the near side. There will be some variation between the petals to give the impression of a natural flower, but each will be growing from the center of the daisy. Where a petal is covered by the rose then the missing edge of the petal will be invisible because it is hidden behind the rose and not because it has been drawn through the rose.

As you understand how a hidden stem runs along before disappearing, you will understand how it continues along after disappearing. The narrow band and the ends of the stems form a group of flowers which have been gathered together. It is best to make clear interruptions in the stems in order to keep the lower part of the composition readable and to avoid having to draw a number of complex crossings.

Add the leaves to fill the chosen spaces beside the stems and connect the lower stems visually with the wider flower group. Give them a simple internal curve that describes a long line down the leaf. The internal curve divides the leaf into simple turning panels for the final shading. Two readable blades are far more useful than a million tiny veins or a solid mass of very small leaves.

The same amount of information can be conveyed with less detail when drawing a small study as opposed to the full-size lessons. One light direction can hold the arrangement together without making all the surfaces equally dark. A convex face gains tone where it turns away from that light, while the inside of a fold has its own facing direction. A small overlap shadow belongs on the rear surface beside the front edge that covers it. Form strokes follow the petal or leaf with which they are associated. The front surface determines where the stroke will stop.