Using Inspiration Photos to Sketch Floral Arrangements

Artist Mia Whittemore finds sketching flowers from photos to be a great artistic warmup. Mia collects photos of flowers and leaves that inspire her and prints them out so she has them handy for reference.

In her drawing warmup, Mia mixes flowers and leaves from different plants together to create floral bunches. She is not looking to create photo-realistic drawings, but to capture the idea and essence of a flower or leaf. She starts looking through her photos until she finds one that she is drawn to. Using a fine-tipped pen and sketchbook paper, she draws the round center of a flower and adds its wispy, feathered petals. At this point, Mia is just looking to capture the most notable characteristics. Once she’s done that with one flower, she moves on to the next, looking for something that would balance what she’s already drawn. Mia adds leaves behind her initial flower, again, drawing loosely.

As Mia works her way through her warmup drawing, she moves from photo to photo, looking to add flowers from one or leaves from another to fill up her page. Mia even imagines what one of her previously drawn flowers might look like from a different angle and adds that to her paper. A linear stalk of hanging bell-shaped flowers is added as Mia puzzles the pieces together, seeing what fits where. Mia draws some details and leaves, adding blossoms where they fit. This sketch is meant to be a warmup, so feel free to jump around. Draw loosely and take license to add petals where they fit until it looks good.

Mia finishes her drawing with big wavy-shaped leaves in an empty part of her drawing. If she’s happy with what she has, Mia refines the drawing before moving on to a painting.