How to Draw a Frangipani Bloom Easily
You don't have to be an expert to create beautiful floral designs. All you need are some simple guidelines to get your drawings accurate. The frangipani plant makes the perfect subject for beginners who want to learn how to draw flowers. By the end of this post, you'll be drawing beautiful blooms in no time!
These flowers are also known as Plumeria flowers.
The Frangipani Flower symbolises natural hardiness. The flower's exquisite appearance represents elegance, riches, and perfection across Asia.
I hope you will take your art materials and practice while reading.
How to Draw Frangipani Leaves
Step 1: Create a rough outline for the leaf by sketching a plane. These lines will be your guide to drawing your leaf.
Step 2: Using your guidelines, add the semi-circles shapes that will form the leaf. Look closely at the leaf and make it broadest in the middle.
Step 3: Finalise your leaf by adding parallel lines for veins. Don't forget the stem of your leaf. You can erase your guidelines later.
The truth is that we don't see leaves flat like this in nature. So let's bend and curve the plane on which it exists.
Step 1: Try to think of the plane on which your leaf is drawn as a sheet of paper. Imagine a crease down the middle of this paper. Notice how it can bend and curve. Create a rough outline for the leaf by sketching your guidelines.
Step 2: Using your guidelines, add the semi-circle shapes. But notice how it wraps around; you cannot see the other side.
Step 3: You can now add parallel lines for veins, but notice how they follow the contour of the plane. You can erase your guidelines once you are happy with your leaves.
Here are some examples to attempt. Try practising drawing leaves on different types of curved planes. Note how leaves that are facing you will appear squashed due to foreshortening.
Once you have mastered curling the leaves, you can go on to detail them with the veins. After you have learned how to curl a leaf, you might not even need the guidelines.
How to Draw Frangipani Flowers - Top, Side, 3/4th View
Petals are no different than drawing leaves. Now that you understand how a leaf curls and folds, you can draw petals. Keep what you have learned earlier in mind.
Top view
Step 1: Create a rough outline of the frangipani flower by drawing a circle and marking its centre.
Step 2: From the middle, draw five lines radiating out of the centre. They are about 35 degrees apart, but they don't need to be accurate.
Step 3: Start outlining the petals lightly with your pencil using the lines you created as a guide to place each petal. Slightly overlap each one.
Step 4: You can finalise the outline by adding the little curves to each petal. Add in the little folds that give its characteristic look. Erase your guidelines.
3/4th view
Step 1: Create a rough outline of the frangipani flower by drawing a circle. Mark its centre a bit off to one side
Step 2: From the middle dot, draw five lines radiating out of the centre. These lines will be curved since we can see the flower dimensionally.
Step 3: Start outlining the petals lightly with your pencil using the lines you created as a guide to place each petal. The petals that are closest to you will appear shorter due to foreshortening. Make sure to overlap each one slightly.
Step 4: You can now finalise the outline by adding the little curves to each petal that give it the distinctive frangipani flower look. Go ahead and erase your guidelines.
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Side view
Step 1: Create a rough outline by drawing a triangle with curved lines. For this one, we can extend the bottom to add a stem. In this view, we can see the stem of the flower.
Step 2: Start by placing a few guidelines, as we have done earlier for the petals. Remember that if we are looking at the flower from the side, we won't be able to see the petals that are obscured from our view.
Step 3: Let's use our guidelines to draw the petals we observe. Remember that they overlap each other.
Step 4: Now that we have our outlines, we can add a few light lines to indicate the flow of the petals and add the characteristic folds. We can erase our guidelines.
Here are some examples of the different ways petals can fold and the angles they can take. Try practising drawing single flowers from different angles.
You can now add some fine lines along the curves of the petals. If you look at the frangipani flowers closely, you'll notice that they have plenty. Don't overdo it. Keep the lines soft and gentle.
Go out in nature and sketch flowers from life. If you can't find some, check out Unsplash.com for references.
How to Draw a Bunch of Frangipani Flowers
If you have been following along, you understand how to draw flowers easily. In this next section, we'll be drawing a bloom of frangipani flowers.
Step 1: Start with the generally oval shape of the composition for the flower composition. I have drawn the guidelines for the individual flowers dark for you to see them clearly. But when you draw your guides, draw them lightly so you can erase them later.
Step 2: We'll draw the centermost, obvious flowers first. These will help us place the other flowers.
Step 3: I have drawn the flowers outside as a guide for you to understand how it works. Of course, you don't have to do this step.
You can draw your flowers directly into your bunch, as in the image below.
Step 4: Fill in the gaps with more petals and flowers that are obscured from our view. Add a few stems and flower buds to make it seem convincing.
Step 5: In this step, we can erase all our guidelines.
Add some thicker lines for emphasis. We can add the distinctive folds of the petals and the lines for details.
There you go! You have learned how to draw a frangipani flower bloom, leaves and petals.
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