Botanical Line Drawing: 200 Step-by-Step Flowers, Leaves, Cacti, Succulents, and Other Items Found in Nature

by Peggy Dean

From the artist behind the popular Pigeon Letters website, an easy, no-skills-necessary guide to drawing flowers, leaves, and cacti with 200 step-by-step prompts.

Line drawing is an easy-to-master art form featuring illustrative, doodle-like designs. It's used widely among artists of many types with both fine and bold lines, creating different variations. Botanical Line Drawing teaches you how to start with the simplest doodles, building into more elaborate, delicate illustrations. This book focuses on the extremely popular subject matter of the natural world and includes flowers, leaves, succulents, houseplants, trees, branches, mushrooms, and more. These simple line drawings will allow you to branch out and have fun with your own personal style, as well as inspire you to add flourishes to other projects.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Drawing, Reference, Crafts, Nature, Creative

1426 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book. How to draw leaves, plants, flowers, cacti and succulents in five easy to follow Step-Outs. The sixth being the finished item.

I've been going thru this with my sketchbook, trying different pens, and some watercolors for some amazing results. Did the leaves, started flowers, I doodled some hydrangea's on a Zentangle and was quite pleased with the results.

I've now doodled thirty pages worth of cute leaves, plants and flowers, next up cacti!

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m honestly not sure how to rate this book, but I wasn’t very impressed by it. If you just want to copy all the same type of drawing style perhaps for some calligraphy card this might be for you but there’s really not any instruction going on here or tips or ideas on how to make it your own or how to draw different groups of flowers open/closed.... I suppose it might be best for the very beginner but I would have felt lost if I had tried to draw from this book fifteen years ago. As an advanced artist I find myself a bit annoyed by the lack of info or even text.

The cover is pretty and it was a library book so ... there’s that.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource for an absolute beginner. It’s great for someone who needs a little nudge in the right direction. It’s best for someone without any experience.

[F. P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've never done any drawing but always wanted to try, I think this book would be a good place to start. At least in the Kindle version, the drawings and the step-by-step instructions on the images are very simple and clear; the images are more like botanical doodles. And you can stretch/enlarge them in the ebook. Just scroll through the book* and start with the simplest images with very few parts on them.

(*With books like this on the Kindle Fire at least, click on the ten-dot square on the bottom and you should see a multi-page view of the book.)

[Marina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the steps were more like leaps to me!

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book! I believe anyone could draw flowers after following these instructions.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book. A great doodler's resource. But one star off for not including the names of the plants and leaves.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the range of plants in this book. Some are simple and easier for beginners to do, while others are much harder.

Sadly, the individual instructions don't come with explanations - just "step 1", "step 2", etc. So if you're looking for hints on how to do the trickier-looking parts of the plant, there isn't much help there, you just have to try and copy it the best you can.

Still, I enjoyed trying out the tutorials here.

[Kristen Lesperance · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is exactly what I needed to draw up a pretty design. It had easy instructions and cute designs.

[Norma Banzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich habe das gesamte Buch zwecks zeichnerischer Bildung durchgeblättert, aber noch nicht alle Botanicals nachgezeichnet. Man kann unkompliziert folgen und hat schnelle Erfolgserlebnisse.

[jiji · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best for absolute beginners. The kind of flowers you might see in baby art.

[alicebme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes my heart sing. I love the step by step with no erasing. Love it. Highly recommend.

[Taun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly the instruction I was looking for. Simplistic botanical line drawings just about anyone can manage & expound upon, adding personal creativity to the underlying step-by-step drawings.

I use these illustrations almost exclusively in my watercolour art & am thankful for the guidance. Not overwhelming, or difficult, just simple line drawings. The book has a rather large selection, making it a good investment for the artist’s library.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good ideas for doodlers.

[Ashley Nikole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book on Line Drawing I've found yet! I found the examples clean, beautiful, and easy to replicate. Such a good book for those wanting to get into the basics of illustrating nature :)

[Laur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful and easy to follow step-by-step!! Loved it and will be looking for more of Peggy Dean’s art books!

[Bethany Kok · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exactly what it says on the tin. No broader principles or advice on converting a real-life flower into a line drawing, just a whole bunch of drawings built step by step.

[Stacy Renee (LazyDayLit) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nonfiction
Art - Drawing
Instructional

Has 200 step-by-step, super simple line drawing tutorials.
Perfect for nature lovers, artists, and journalers!

[Patrycja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, helpful, easy to follow directions how to draw step-by-step all kind of flowers, leaves and other plants.

It doesn't matter what your drawings skills are. I believe that this is book for beginners and advanced skilled artists as well. I personally can draw, but still I found this book educative and useful.

After steps that show how to start, and finish each plant, there is a space to draw and practice on the pages of the book.
I personally drew in my sketch book though.
I had fun drawing the plants. It was calming and satisfying. Almost like my little meditation.
I recommend this book.

[DAWN · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a how to book on how to draw botanical illustrations. Most of the illustrations were pretty accurate, but some of them weren’t so much. The book only teaches you how to draw one isolated part of the plant so there’s a section on leaves and a section on flowers, etc. what most people mean by “botanical illustration“ is a detailed and accurate depiction of a large portion of the plant so this book kinda missed the mark for that. It also teaches you how to draw each thing by just unpacking the different components of it but doesn’t help coach you on how to get it right although maybe that’s just an issue of practice.

[Purplelion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked ebook version of this book up with the goal of making hand-drawn motifs for my floral textile designs. Love the way this book is laid out. It's divided into several categories that include domestic and wildflowers, succulents and more. Most of what's included looks drop-dead simple. More complex flowers are included, such as the African Daisy, the garden rose, a tree ring and others.

If you're looking to spruce up your textile designs or draw interesting and varied flowers for greeting cards, this will help you.

[Dee Renee Chesnut · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this Kindle book because I had been drawing the flowers in Inky Wonderlands with Johanna Basford and I wanted to draw more real flowers. There are no photos of the models that Dean may have used in the book so I have to believe her line drawings are what she named them.
There are always five steps for each illustration. Sometimes I question where she started or question how she got to the next step. There is a Table of Content but no Index.
I used this book to practice line drawings with pencil and then ink the sketch; I practiced with fine liners; I practiced with brush pens. I stored this for reference in case I want to use other media such as color pencils or watercolors.

[Teresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Useless

This is a book that is supposed to teach you to line draw botanical plants but doesn’t.

I have drawn and painted all my life but was interested in learning about botanical prints.

No botanical prints here, just doodle like me drawings. This is a book about drawing flowers with no actual instruction, just green lines to show you what is next and except for a very few flowers, like fuchsia, rarely look like the flower they are supposed to be.

[Elizabeth Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been wanting to learn how to do watercolor and ink botanicals, and Peggy Dean's whimsical line art is exactly what I was looking for. This is going to be a great resource for learning how to draw a greater variety of plants, rather than just the same three styles all the time. My only complaint is that it would be SO much more helpful if the index was alphabetical, so you could more easily find a certain plant when you need it.

[Mary Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't even know a book like this existed. I never considered myself good at drawing, so l was genuinely surprised by what I was able to create simply by following the steps. It's the kind of book that makes you stop and think, "Wait... I actually drew that?" That's why I'd recommend it to kids and anyone just starting out.

[Cat Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good book. I got it to work on my doodles at work during calls. I enjoy that I could get it on Kindle. Definitely love this book. Just wish the doodles were a little more complex but still a good starter book.

[Kathryn Broege · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book!

I am very new to line drawing and with this artist's guidance through this book I enjoyed some very satisfying successes with some cacti and succulent drawings! I am very pleased with it and look forward to trying more!

[Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This did not have the same energy like her other book; the drawings were very simple. Sure, a lot of effort was placed in reducing the plant forms to easy to follow designs, but without a narrative, I did not enjoy it. Good for those looking for dictionary style simple plant references.

[Msoneworld4me · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a gardener or want an actual illustration guide for botany keep looking. But if you're looking for an easy to follow, and super simple line drawing this book works. The doodles are easy to follow with step-by-step directions.

[HM · Rating 4 out of 5]

SUCH a great book! I would give it 5 stars, but I wish it had ways to put the flowers together in drawings. TONS of illustrations done in steps and perfect for learning. I actually borrowed it from the library and then bought it- it’s a keeper!