How To Draw A Heart

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I made this drawing in colored pencils. Misty image of colors is adequate to that. It would be more appropriate to draw a heart on a bigger scale and make it with acrylic colors.
This picture belongs to “big hits” that came out in the late sixties during the peak of the Hippie era.

It is actually an illustration for The Beatles song: All You Need IS Love.

I love this illustration very much and I hope you’ll love it too.

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The beginning is simple. Draw a heart shape. Simple isn’t it? Make as many lines as you feel necessary.

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If you struggle to draw both sides of a heart to make it even and same, this may help:

• draw a center line
• draw only one half of the heart first
• fold the paper half exactly along the center line – half-heart drawing is inside
• imprint the half-heart to the opposite side

You can follow the above guide, but I would recommend you to draw both sides without folding the paper, etc.

You can make guidelines (without a ruler!) as seen in the picture. The distances A - A are the same. Also, the B - B is the same.

When you are done, you now know how to draw a heart, if this is what you wanted to learn.

However, I believe that you will stay with me here and continue to work this out till the end.

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Next, you have to decide the size of the letters Love. Draw two guidelines.

See, my guidelines aren’t straight but I correct but they will go on unrecognized. It sometimes works this way.

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The word Love consists of four letters. Divide the space within the heart contours and sketch the letters.

You can create your own original letters if you want.

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The first letter is capital L with a prolonged leg. It is decorated with yellow lilies.

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Draw the ribbon floating above the letters. The ribbon carries a mini heart on its opposite end. This mini-size heart is also a good exercise of how to draw a heart.

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Now, sketch the thin ribbon running through the letters. Both ends of this thin ribbon are decorated with another two mini hearts.

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To fit the All You Need Is into the wide ribbon above, it is good if you sketch first the letters in weak single pencil lines.

All three mini hearts are carried by birds. These birds are also miniatures and you can draw them very easily. Enlarge the picture and I think you’ll get the clue. To draw a bird is really easy and to draw these small miniature birds is even easier.

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This is one good example of how can you adjust the size during the drawing if applicable.

I found the initial size of this heart a bit small when all decorative sketches were done. So I decided to extend the volume of the original heart.

You can resize your drawing as you like using this simple technique. This technique is easy to use when you draw a heart or any object that has evenly shaped contours.

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We were working with a standard graphite HB pencil so far.
Graphite pencil always makes the paper a bit dirty and grayish. This picture is a bit complex and too colorful to work with graphite pencil till the end.

A standard pencil is helpful in initial sketching but it can be an obstacle when you are finishing your drawing, especially if it is rich in colors and patterns.

Draw blue pencil lines over every contour line. Not very weak and do not push the blue pencil either because you will erase it later.

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Your drawing with a blue pencil over the initial lines should look similar to this picture.

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Make sure you outlined all contours with a blue pencil. If yes, use a plastic non-abrasive eraser to erase all the initial graphite pencil lines.

You will get a cleaner space free from graphite pencil lines cluster.

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Draw a heart and fill it up with colored pencils is the coming joyous task. It is difficult to say where to start.

I would say begin with the lighter and brighter colors. Later you can develop your own way as you’ll understand how colors are changing when blended together.

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After coloring the lilies inside the L capital letter, I gradually colored all the yellow parts.

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Next, I colored pinkish and red. Note that the letters are yellow on the top, red and orange color in the middle, and pinkish on the bottom.

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Add the blue and green color tone, first only to the elements. Leave the background blue heart blank for now.

Keep in mind that all letters are 3-dimensional.

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Begin to darken the background heart with a blue color pencil. If possible color it gradually, which means, but the first layer is a lighter blue color.

Make round pencil movements. If possible avoid straight strokes or cross-hatching to avoid unwanted irregular shades.

This will allow you to easily erase the spots where corrections will be necessary or ease some mistakes if you make any.

Upper space is a night sky with the moon and stars. You can color the moon and stars yellow. Enlarge the picture and see the details.

See, a heart can be a night sky. Wow, what a great idea!

I think that just drawing a heart without all these fantastic decorations would be quite boring. What do you think?

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Now to make the shape of all letters, ribbons, mini-hearts, birds, etc; more distinct and more alive here is a small technique:

Sharpen your dark blue pencil and draw a thin single dark blue line around all elements, except the background heart itself.

Enlarge the picture to get the idea.

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Here, I simply enhanced and sharpened the colors on the computer. This looks a bit better, but someone may like the former one.