How to Draw a Sunflower, Realistic Sunflower
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Start out by picking your materials. I used this basic charcoal set plus some erasers and blending stumps for this drawing. I used 2B. HB, and white charcoal along with a carbon pencil for sketching. I also used soft willow charcoal for light shading
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Start out with a very simple sketch using the carbon pencil. Use basic shapes and divisions.
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Sketch in the center of the flower.
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sketch in the petals one quadrant at a time.
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Keep inching along. Don't worry yourself with details yet.
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Your basic sketch should look something like this.
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Roughly shade in the flower and background using soft charcoal.
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Smooth out your background using a blending stump.
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Smooth out the flower using a blending stump. Don't worry about perfect blending just make sure that there isn't too much loose charcoal on the paper's surface.
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Use 2B and HB charcoal to add a layer of shading to the seed section. Use a blending stump as needed.
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Now shade in the floret section. Use an eraser to hint at the highlights.
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Start further defining the petals. Use a 2B charcoal on the background and HB on the petals. Use a blending stump to smooth out your shading and an eraser to add highlights.
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Continue working your way clockwise around the flower.
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Define the next section.
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This finished layer should look something like this.
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If you don't have white charcoal or just don't want to use it you can still follow along by just erasing your highlights. Start out by defining the seeds. Use 2B and HB charcoal to add definition as well.
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Draw in the florets. There are basically tiny flowers surrounding the seed are of the sunflower. You can get as detailed as you want with them but for my sanity's sake I kept them simple.
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Use a white charcoal stick to roughly "shade in" the petals.
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Make sure to cover as much of the blank paper as possible.
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Start detailing the petals. Work in the same clockwise. I use a white charcoal pencil for the highlight details and an HB pencil for the edges and shadows. Use a blending stump to soften your edges. Darken your background as you move along using 2B c
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Finish up your petals and add finishing details. This is just one charcoal drawing technique. I will probably learn more as I practice with this medium and discover new ways of using it. Let me know what you think!
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April 18, 2012
Description: Finally, after hundreds of graphite tutorials I am moving on to charcoal! I consider this starting from scratch since I have never drawn a purely charcoal drawing using a set technique. Hopefully with a bit of practice I will be able to make my charcoal tuts equal to my graphite ones. For now here's a lesson on how to draw a sunflower using charcoal.
