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Composition can feel intimidating – so many rules to follow that it can suck the joy and creativity from art. Well, I have an alternative proposal: intuitive composition. In this easy composition tutorial, we’re going to compose a simple floral piece using basic art supplies to make it super achievable. And if you want a sneak peak at the process – jump down to the bottom to see a YouTube Short I made of it.
You’ll need:
Use your preferred tools so long as they let you work quickly. I would suggest crayons, soft pastels, highlighter pens, colouring pens etc. I’m using regular old highlighter pens and a paint pen to layer on top.
For my main flower colour I’m using pink (highlighter)- but this isn’t necessary. My additional flower colour is a mustard yellow (paint pen) and my leaf colour is a green (highlighter).
For the dark outline I’m using a black brush pen, but you could use anything – a posca, a biro, pencil, charcoal, colouring pens, etc.
I’m working in a Pith sketchbook but it’s not necessary. I could have used printer paper! Whatever you have easily accessible is the best paper for this.
Draw a bright, breezy flower, colour it in, then draw another one. Continue until you feel like you’ve got enough flowers on your page. Here we are allowing our intuition to guide us on where we place our flowers and how many we add. As we practice, we’ll get better at listening to our intuition, and our intuition will also learn what works and what doesn’t.
Make sure you enjoy the experience, whether you draw slow and smooth, or fast and scribbly.
I’ve drawn mine in different sizes, with some only partially on the page. Give it a try!
If you have any spots on your page that feel a little bit empty to you, add some ‘ghost petals’ – petal outlines attached to existing flowers that are not coloured in. I did this wherever it seemed like the page was too empty and needed something to make it feel complete, there’s no more science to it than that.
Take your dark outline colour pen, and using one bold, continuous movement, give each flower an outline. I strongly encourage offset or wonky outlines, these are charming.
This is your time to be bold, go for it!
Take your outline colour and add little dots to represent the stamen at the centre of the flower.
There’s no fixed number of dots or size – you can keep them really close to the centre, or spread them quite far out. It’s wonderfully satisfying to prod the page with your pen so take the time to enjoy this step.
Take your additional flower colour pen and add some lines radiating outwards from the middle of your petals. Don’t worry if these overlap the stamen dots or go over the outlines. Remember: wonky-ness adds charm.
Make your lines quick and loose for both a fun drawing experience and to create a more loose artwork.
If you have any spots on your page that feel empty to you, add the outline of a pair of leaves attached to the nearest flower. As when we drew the outlines, draw the leaves using one bold, continuous movement.
If you feel like it, colour one or two of the leaves in.
And that’s you done. Take a minute or two to enjoy what you’ve made and the feeling of satisfaction at having been bold and made an intuitive composition with flowers.
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If you enjoyed this easy composition tutorial, you might like the class it comes from, Breaking Through Hesitation: Create with Courage
You can see the class trailer and an excerpt from this class (in Shorts format) below
If you enjoyed this tutorial, why don’t you have a look at some of my other art tutorials.
