To celebrate National Pencil Day, we have teamed up with Illustrator Nina Fuga for a flower drawing tutorial. Nina Fuga is an itinerant illustrator who was raised in Venice, Italy. Trained in London, Nina graduated from an MA in Communication Art & Design and she works across drawing, art direction for fashion and animation and reportage illustration. A restless drawer, she enjoys drawing people and their patterns that repeat and mix in her vortex of sinuous lines and colours.
We hope you enjoy her tutorial!
What do you need:
- 1 set of Tombow MONO 100 graphite pencils
- 1 Tombow Dust Catch Eraser
- 1 Tombow Bristol paper pad - 250 g/m2 - DIN A4
- 1 ruler
What do I like about the Tombow MONO 100 pencils? From…tip to toes these pencils are an absolute lush product, they come in a desirable box that one wouldn’t want to touch if it was for an unbearable urge of drawing. They come in 12 lead grades that allow you to create as many shades of grey that you can dream of.
I’d like to take you through a few simple steps to draw your dream flower arrangement:
STEP 1: Draw a box where to fit your flower arrangement using a faint line and a ruler. Sketch out a rough composition of your pot and flower arrangement. I normally use a HB pencil as I like the versatile intensity of the line that you can obtain using this particular hardness. I tend to use my imagination or memory and I start composing my image, drawing different types of flowers with a faint line. If easier, you can use a photo of a flower arrangement and use that as your reference. My biggest advice is try not to feel too precious about creating a perfect image - flowers have organic shapes and textures so you can allow some degree of imagination!
STEP 2: Have a B and 2B pencil at hand so that you can start adding detail to your flowers and pot. Keep playing with these two different lead grade until you reach a nice contrast between lighter flowers and darker ones. You can do the same thing on the vase - maybe look at your favourite vases at home and try and mimic the same patterns in your picture!
STEP 3: Add some tone to your picture. To do so play with a variation of Mono 100 pencils and create areas of parallel lines on a separate sheet of paper. This should help you to notice the different graphite intensity you can reach and that you want to use in your illustration. I usually enjoy making my background darker to add a multidimensional feel to my picture. By doing this, you’ll notice the flowerpot magically coming forward and being more present as your focal point.
STEP 4: Using a range of your favourite MONO 100 pencils, you can now add more detail to your picture - tiny flowers, petals, stems, leaves. A useful tip is: try not to overdo it! I like drawings that aren’t too finished as they maintain a fresh and spontaneous feel which is so hard to achieve.
STEP 5: Erase the outline of your box so that you can keep the dark shading as the contour of your picture and there you are!
Please tag @tombow_uk and @ninafuga when creating your own flower drawings using the hashtag #tombowskills... we'd love to see your images!