How to draw grass
How to draw grass
How to Draw Grass with Colored Pencils
Landscape drawing often requires you to draw grass. (This is beyond an obvious statement.)
If you want to create a realistic-looking landscape drawing, you need to be able to create the illusion of realistic grass in a landscape. Many people struggle with drawing grass that actually looks realistic, but this doesn’t have to be the case.
Understand How Grass Grows
Learning how to draw realistic grass is a matter of understanding how grass grows and recognizing that grass doesn’t grow as uniform lines. In fact, grass grows in a very «hap-hazard» way. Grass simply does not grow in unifrom lines, so it shouldn’t be drawn that way either.
When you make your marks, let the lines cross over each other. The lines should bend and curve. Take a close look at grass and you’ll see that this is how grass actually grows. This should be reflected in your drawing.
Draw Lines From the Ground Up
Marks made for grass blades should be made from the ground up. This way the line tapers a bit at the end just like a real grass blade. Begin your lines at the ground and move them up towards the sky.
Typically the pressure that is placed on a pencil lessens as the pencil is pulled after the initial contact on the surface. This is what will produce a natural taper at the end of the line.
Grass Isn’t Just Green
Grass is not just green either. It’s made up of lots of colors. Of course, green should exist in the drawing, but mixed greens will translate better. Try using yellow ochre and darker blues, and then layer yellow-greens on top. Experiment with related colors and see what works for the grass that you trying to emulate.
Sometimes, manufactured greens can look fake and detract from the drawing. We see millions of colors, so it only makes sense that we need to mix as many of these as we can to create a natural illusion.
Stay Away From Black
The following video tutorial demonstrates how to draw grass with colored pencils.
How to Draw Realistic Grass in 4 Easy Steps
Ever wonder what’s the most difficult—and most time consuming—part of a landscape to draw? If you’re like me, it’s the grass. Even if your composition only has a small grassy area, it can seem to take years to get it finished, and get it right.
So anytime I find a different way to draw grass, I sit up and take notice. And since I know I’m not the only colored pencil artist struggling with this aspect of landscape drawing, I wanted to share a my latest method with you.
Ready to draw? Let’s get started!
Step 1: Lay down basic green colors in even layers
Choose two to four shades of green in a range of values and sharpen each pencil as much as possible. Then start layering your color on the paper, ideally working from a photograph to have an idea of where your lights and darks will go.
You want these initial layers to be as smooth and even as possible, with no visible pencil strokes. Most experts recommend horizontal oval-shaped or circular strokes, since those have no starting or stopping points.
Start with light to medium-light pressure. The lighter the pressure you use, the more layers you may have to draw. Be careful not to use such heavy pressure that you crush or press down the tooth of the paper, though. That will make it very difficult to add additional color.
The goal for this first layer is to have three distinct sections of different values—light, medium, and dark—with very little overlap between them.
Here was my base layer:
If you want, you can blend this layer with odorless mineral spirits when you’re finished. I blended the left side and left the right unblended, so you can see how it changes the final drawing. If you do decide to blend, let the paper dry completely before starting the next step.
TIP: When blending with odorless mineral spirits, wet your brush and blend in the same direction as your pencil strokes. Also, start blending in the lightest area of color, and rinse your brush between colors, so you don’t get unwanted darks in the light areas. Since my drawing was so small, I used cotton swabs for blending and used each swab just once to keep my colors separate!
Step 2: Darken your colors and values
For the second step, use the same colors to add a second layer over the top of the first one. Start to overlap your colors so your sections don’t feel quite as distinct.
NOTE: If you blend with odorless mineral spirits, you may find the next layer goes onto the paper more easily and is darker than the first layers. The second layers of color for this demo piece were markedly darker when applied over blended color than over unblended.
You may blend again at the end of this step. If you do blend throughout the drawing, use less odorless mineral spirits with each step. The more pigment on the paper, the less solvent you should use, or you could accidentally life the color off the paper.
Step 3: Add a unifying layer of color
In this step you want to layer the lightest color over the entire grassy area, including the shadows (even cast shadows such as I’ve drawn.) Add a couple of layers in the darker areas if necessary to provide a unifying color layer.
Then, lightly layer the middle value color over most of the drawing. Work into the lightest area, but don’t add middle value over all of the lighter values. Use light pressure and decrease the pressure as you work further into the background.
Blend again, if you wish.
TIP: If your greens get a bit too bright, you can always tone them down with a glaze of earth tones. You can, of course, neutralize the vibrancy at any time, including after the grass is finished, but it’s easier to take this step before adding details.
I lightly shaded a neutral, light earth tone over the right side of the sample below so you could see how much difference a small amount of color can make.
Step 4: Add grassy details
For the final step, it’s time to add details that will make the area look more like grass and less like carpet.
Use very sharp pencils and make short, vertical strokes to mimic the look of grass. You don’t have to add vertical strokes everywhere, but you can if you wish. You’ll find that vertical strokes are most effective when placed directly on the edges between your different colors and values.
So begin with the darkest value you used for the previous steps and add short, vertical strokes along the edges between the colors. Keep the strokes very short in the background—use a stippling stroke if you prefer. As you move toward the foreground, lengthen the strokes and add more variety in direction and angle.
Below, I’ve added “grass-like” strokes around the edge of the dark cast shadow (but not inside it) and along the bottom of the drawing, in the foreground.
Obviously, at this point you no longer want to blend your colors, since these details are what makes the grass look like grass! 🙂 But you can see how blending in the earlier stages gave a slightly richer, deeper color to the left of the drawing above.
TIP: If you’re drawing freshly-mown grass, you’ll want to keep these strokes fairly uniform. If you’re drawing tall grass, you have a little more wiggle room in the length and variety of the strokes.
Interestingly, this isn’t my favorite way to draw grass. I usually prefer using directional, vertical, and stippling strokes through all of the steps. But that can take a very long time, so on those occasions when a drawing needs to be done quickly or for much larger works, this method is great for speeding up the process.
If you have the time, though, feel free to cover all of the paper—or at least the foreground—with short, varied strokes like this, to emphasize the grass:
As you can see, the results are definitely worth it!
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How to Draw Various Foliage with a Depth of Field
Comic artist Ann Maulina explains how to draw various foliage types, including bushes, grass, trees, and leaves placed in background layers known as depth of field.
Depth of Field
Before I show you how to draw foliage, I’d like to explain the concept of depth of field which is quite essential when drawing a background.
Here is its simple formula—foreground, midground, and background.
Adding leaves by using a simple solid round brush
Here are some steps for drawing bushes growing in various directions from that first simple shape.
Drawing Grass
Drawing Trees
Drawing Leaves
As I mentioned earlier about the depth of field, objects in the foreground are highly detailed so sometimes the leaves in the foreground need to be drawn individually.
To draw individual leaves, I usually start with a center line of action. Below are some examples of where to find these lines.
Different leaves have different kinds of shapes, but they usually have a central line just like the spine of the human figure. This line can be used as a line of action to draw a leaf. Below are some leaves in different angles and poses that I drew from just one similar central line.
These lines can also be used when drawing a branch of leaves.
Different plants have different patterns in which the leaves branch out. The image below shows three different patterns on three different plants I found in my mom’s garden. Please use these as guides if you want to add more detail and characteristics to the foliage you’re drawing. Usually, I would just google the plant’s name and study the shape and pattern before drawing it on my canvas.
Studying the pattern directly from an actual branch in front of you will give a better result because you can twirl or rotate it so you won’t miss any detail.
Conclusion
See the big picture first, details later. Use basic shapes for the overall form, and then use directional lines as a guide when adding details.
Ann Maulina is a comic artist from Indonesia. Her comics are Raruurien (www.raruurien.com) and Varunair. She also works as a freelance game concept artist at times. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication Design, which gives her a high advantage with art and design projects. She enjoys creating art while exploring some dynamic and harmonic colors. You can find her at:
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How to Draw Grass in 3 Different Ways Tutorial
This tutorial explains how to draw grass in three different ways. The examples include drawing grass close up, drawing patches of grass, and drawing large areas of grass.
This is a fairly simple tutorial easy enough for beginners.
Drawing Close Up Grass
For dense close up grass (like you are looking directly at it) you can draw each individual blade.
Grass close up drawing step by step
You can think of drawing this type of grass as several layers with some blades of grass being in the foreground and others in the background. Simply start you drawing with a few blades and keep on adding to them.
Grass close up drawing directions
To make the grass look more natural be sure add in some slightly different curves for different and make some overlap in different places.
Drawing Patches of Grass
This type of grass drawing can be useful for both close up drawings and larger landscape drawings.
Grass clumps drawing directions
As the clusters of grass are far apart grass will tend to sort of “fan out” in all directions unlike dense grass which tends to mostly go upwards.
Grass clumps perspective
When drawing multiple patches you can vary them in size to make them look more natural but generally the patches that are farther off in the distance should be smaller due to perspective (as in the example above).
For an explanation of perspective and how it applies to drawing see:
Drawing Large Areas of Grass
Drawing each individual blade of grass for large areas can bee too time consuming and may also look unnatural as individual blades of grass will sort of blend together off in the distance.
Area of grass drawing directions
For large areas of grass you can just draw the tips/hints of the individual blades fanning out in slightly different directions.
Grass area clumps perspective
Just like the clumps of grass make the blades of grass smaller and less defined as they go off into the distance until you basically just add a few small strokes or dots.
Conclusion
Drawing grass is not too difficult and can be very useful for outdoor scenery or close up outdoor drawings as grass is so common.
For another simple tutorial you may want to check out:
How to Draw Summer Grass
In today’s tutorial, I want to show you my favorite way to draw grass. I’ll show you step-by-step how to draw summer grass using the direct method of drawing, and blending by layering to create lush, green grass.
I’m excerpting this tutorial from the new in-depth tutorial from Ann Kullberg, Grazing Horses.
The drawing is on Bristol vellum, and I used Prismacolor Premier Soft Core pencils, but you can use any type of paper and any brand of pencils. The color names will differ, but you can easily match colors brand-to-brand by using online color charts.
How to Draw Summer Grass
Step 1
I like to establish pictorial depth (the illusion of distance) as soon as possible by using stroke quality, stroke, and value.
In the foreground, strokes are darker, longer and more varied. In the middle distance, strokes are shorter, lighter in value, and more uniform. Use circular or very short directional strokes in the far distance.
Since most of my work uses the umber under drawing method, Light Umber is the color I usually begin with.
Outline major shapes first. The shadows don’t need to be outlined; simply draw them with directional strokes.
Then shade the shadows with light pressure and very sharp pencils. It’s better to draw value layer by layer than to use heavier pressure, especially with a smooth paper like Bristol.
Step 2
Glaze Sand over the grass. Use light pressure and a sharp pencil to apply vertical strokes; longest strokes in the foreground and getting shorter as you work into the middle distance. Overlap strokes to avoid creating unwanted edges because once they appear, they’re difficult to conceal.
Next glaze Chartreuse over the same areas, using the same strokes and light pressure with a very sharp pencil.
Darken the darker values in the tall grass by layering Marine Green into the shadows around the horses and into some middle values. Again, use light pressure and overlapping, directional strokes.
You should not be able to see individual strokes as clearly in the background as in the foreground. Using directional strokes around the edges between values is enough to suggest the look of grass.
Step 3
Next, layer Chartreuse into some of the lighter middle values. Use the same type of stroke you used for the darker colors, but don’t cover every area of dark color with Chartreuse and add Chartreuse in some areas where there are no darker values.
Take your time. Colored pencil is a naturally slow medium. It takes less time to work carefully and get the drawing right the first time, than to have to cover or correct a mistake made because you were in too much of a hurry.
But don’t beat yourself up if you get careless. I’ve been using colored pencil for nearly twenty years and still have to make myself take a break. Step away from your work when you find yourself rushing or getting careless. You won’t regret it!
Step 4
Layer Olive Green over almost all of the meadow. Work around the brightest highlights. Use a combination of closely spaced vertical strokes and circular strokes with light to medium light pressure. Remember: Longer strokes in the foreground; shorter strokes in the background!
Use medium pressure and circular strokes to darken the shadows and darker middle values with Olive Green.
Next, layer Peacock Green over the meadow, starting at the bottom with directional strokes and medium-light to medium pressure.
Step 5
Layer Jasmine over the meadow with light-medium pressure. Use whatever stroke allows you to get even coverage (I used a combination of circular strokes and closely-spaced vertical strokes.)
Follow that with a layer of Olive Green over all of the meadow except the area immediately in front of the horses. Next, add a variety of short, vertical strokes to create the look of grass. Make sure to keep your pencil sharp, vary the length of the strokes (longer in front, shorter in back), and also vary the amount and direction of curve.
TIP: Don’t try to draw every blade of grass. That will drive you to distraction in no time! Instead, draw tufts of grass by varying the pattern of lights and darks. Also draw the most detail in the foreground, and in the edges between distinct colors or values.
Step 6
In the area immediately in front of the horses, stroke in clumps of grass with curving, fan-shaped strokes. Use sharp pencils and light pressure. You don’t want dark marks, but you do want them dark enough to show. The detail below shows the sort of stroke I use.
Don’t cover every bit of paper with these clumps. Also put the darkest marks on the shadowed side of each clump of grass, either by pressing a little harder on the pencil, or by placing strokes closer together.
Step 7
I glazed alternating layers of Jasmine and Olive Green over the meadow to finish drawing the grass and to warm up the green.
Step 8
Darken the foreground with a layer of Dark Green applied with medium to heavy pressure. Alternate between directional, vertical strokes to mimic grass and tight, circular strokes for even coverage.
Follow up with a layer of Dark Brown applied in the same way over the same areas, then add Indigo Blue and another layer of Dark Green.
Keep the darkest areas at the bottom of the drawing and gradually lighten values as you move upward in the composition.
Darken the cast shadows from the horses if necessary.
Conclusion
I’ve also described how to draw more detailed autumn grass. That tutorial shows you how to draw tall, more detailed grass. That method will also work if you want to draw summer grass that’s tall.
This tutorial is excerpted from the Grazing Horses In-Depth Tutorial from Ann Kullberg. The kit also describes step-by-step how to draw the horses, and the background.