Poinsettia Flower Sketch

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Before starting your Poinsettia Flower Sketch, you may want to read the charming story-legend about this flower on the bottom of the page.

Knowing the legend behind it gives you suddenly a very different perspective on how you may perceive it.

First, observe the leaves, see how they are facing. Some of them are nicely opened up and some are bent so that you can also see their reverse side.

It may sound obvious, but it is important to observe this detail when you draw a plant.

click on the images to enlarge

I divided the Poinsettia Flower Sketch into five stages. In each stage you will see how the sketching evolves and how does it progress. First, sketch the outlines of the leaves.

Do not mind about the “exactness” of the shapes at this stage. You can do it later. As you may have noticed the leaves look like as if they were simply piled up on each other.

The leaves are rather flat, so the sketching is much simpler than the sketch of a rose where the petals of the flower are spinning around the center and create a “cup”.

Draw the veins on each leaf so that your picture will gradually start to resemble to a plant. It looks instantly better now. What do you think?

How Do You Like Poinsettia Flower Sketch?

Now select several leaves on the top of the flower and you can contrast them out by sketching more distinctive outer lines on each leaf.

It is just to decide the area where you want to continue your work further.

To shade and darken the leaves is the pleasant part of the job and you will like it.

You have sketched the outline of the flower, and you have captured the size and shape too. The rest is just to work out leaf after leaf.

Shaded leaves start to emerge one by one; you will feel such joy as the work is progressing directly under your eyes.

I left this sketch unfinished on purpose. Click the image to enlarge.

Print it out and shade the rest of the leaves to complete your Poinsettia Flower Sketch.

The Legend of Poinsettia

Pepita was a poor Mexican girl. She felt awfully sad because she had no gift to offer the Christ Child on Christmas Eve services in local village chapel. Her brother Pedro told her, that even the smallest and most humble gift will be appreciated in God’s eyes if it is given in love.

She knelt on the roadside and picked up a handful of common weeds. She fashioned them into a bouquet and brought them into the chapel.

Pepita remembered what Pedro said, that “even the smallest gift will be appreciated in His eyes when given in love.

When she placed the weeds at the foot of the nativity scene the weeds burst into red blossoms. All who saw that scene were certain that they witnessed a Christmas miracle.

From that day on, the flowers were known as the “Flores de Noche Buena”, which means “Flowers of the Holy Night”.

The red petals of the plant are often mistaken for flowers when in fact, they are bracts, or modified leaves.

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