How to Draw a Hydrangea

Step 1. Guideline Circle

Draw a wide circle that will define the size of the flower. Leave more room towards the bottom so we can add a stem later. Using guidelines to draw flowers will make it a lot easier to plan out your drawings and consistently get good results.

Step 2. Central Flower

Draw a small dot towards the center of the flower. Since hydrangeas are made up for many small flowers, we are going to give it a main flower towards the center that will work as the focal point of the drawing and then add flowers around it. Knowing where you want the point of interest to be will help you decide where to add extra details because we want the most amount of detail & contrast at the focal point.

Step 3. One Petal

Draw a petal shape that consists of an arrow head that connects to the core (the dot we drew earlier) and a rounded outside. Notice how we are drawing these petals very small compared to the large guideline circle, the size of your petals will determine how many small flowers you will draw to fill your hydrangea. Once you have done this tutorial, you can play around and see what type of proportions you like for your flower pe

Step 4. Complete Petals

Add three more petals to complete our central flower. Notice how the petals arent perfectly shaped or the exact same size, make sure to leave slight variations on your petals to help describe the organic forms. Later you will see me add flowers with three petals to help add variation to the image.

Step 5. Top Flower

So we will be repeating the steps we used earlier, first draw a dot that defines the center point for the flower and then add the petals. Draw a petal of similar size above and to the left of our central flower.

The key to drawing nice flower petals is to always remember that they grow out and away from the center, that is why I like to start with the core because it makes it easy to see which direction the petals will move in.

Step 6.

Add another flower to the right side, I hope this process is starting to feel natural. Take time to draw a bunch of tiny flowers in your sketchbook and play around with different variations, maybe you like sharper edges or maybe 5 or 6 petals instead of 4. The greatest joy from drawing flowers comes with the freedom to play around and experiment! :D

Step 7. More Flowers

Repeating the steps for flower drawing we add more flowers around the center region. Notice how I am drawing these flowers slightly smaller than the main center one. This will create more rhythm and flow to the flower as a whole.

Step 8. Smaller Flowers

Start adding smaller flowers towards the edges, these flowers are more packed together than the last ones and I am starting to add some that have 3 petals instead of 4.

Step 9. Left Edge

Add flowers towards the left edge of the guideline circle, the key to drawing these flowers is to make the petals that are closer to the center longer than the ones that are turning away. Look at the image below and pay attention to how the petals closer to use look longer than the ones that are turning away. Copy this in your sketchbook until you get the hang of it.

Step 10. Right Side + Erase

Add small flowers turning away on the right side and then erase away the guideline circle. In the image below I am using a kneadable eraser which is a puddy/playdough like eraser that you can mold into whatever shape you want. I prefer these erasers because they dont leave any shavings :D.

Step 11. Fill Edges

Add more flowers to fill out the edges of the hydrangea, make sure to maintain the proportions of where the guideline circle used to be.

Step 12. Stem

To draw the stem add two vertical lines from the base of the flower. Feel free to play around the the curvature of the stem, I went with a fairly straight stem but you can play around and try different curves.

Step 13. Leaf Center Line

Lets add a leaf to the hydrangea by first drawing a curving line up and to the left of the stem, this line will be the center line of the leaf.

Step 14. Bottom Edge

Add a line that curves down and then up towards the top left, this defines the lower edge of the leaf.

Step 15. Top Curve

add a curving line from the tip of the last line that connects back to the stem.

Step 16. Shading

Add slight shading to the leaf close to the stem and also to the stem where it connects to the flower. This helps describe these forms, if you drew your hydrangea really large you can also add these types of shading lines to the petals themselves. I have drawn very small so I only added a few tiny lines to the central flowers.

Final Step!

Celebrate your drawing!

Yaay finished the hydrangea drawing! Thank you so much for letting me share my love for drawing flowers with you! I really hope this was fun for you and maybe (just maybe) this tutorial has helped you realize that you can totally learn how to draw. I learned drawing at a later age so I know that this is a learnable skill that anyone can pick up at any time (with effort, of course).

Check out more of the tutorial on the site! I've put lots of effort into creating these free resources because I want more people to fall in love with drawing. So feel free to share the link to this tutorial with friends :D That would be tremendously helpful to me on this mission to spread the love for drawing.