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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like books with not much text to read this is the book for you. I liked that there was not much text to read and that there were over 200 line drawings to draw. I like growing plants and I like drawing plants. And if I draw plants there are plenty of subjects to draw. What are there over 200,000 species of plants. The exercises in the book were fun to draw. I only wish I knew what the names of the plants i drew.
I wanted to learn how to draw so I could paint. I don't want to paint anymore. I like that with drawing all I need is a piece of paper and a pencil. I don't need all the paints, and paint brushes, and canvases.
I think reading this book was a good use of my time. I enjoyed it.

[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.

[AL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy guide to get you started on how to draw lots of different types of pretty flowers and leaves. Good for kids and budding artists. Quick wins to being able to create pretty cards, bookmarks, borders etc.. Would have been more helpful if the names of flowers and plants have been given as well. Also I would add that the given 5 steps are not necessarily the easiest or most intuitive way to draw, do as what comes naturally to you, use the steps as a guided suggestion only so that you don’t cramp your natural style.

[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.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely little how to book for begginers at drawing, or people with more art experience under their belt that just never drew a lot of plants.

Wasn't very fond of the fact that a few of the drawings just didn't resemble their real life counterparts, or had details that didn't fit with what they actually look like. Useful nonetheless, just not 100% accurate across all the illustrations / step by steps.

[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.

[Ericka · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Inspiring!

I actually decided to imitate an old Victorian botanical on black canvas using the suggestions in this book. I'm very excited about this project and know it will turn out beautifully because even though this book is simple it's very easy to follow to make beautiful botanicals! Thank you!

[Vivian Wiltshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book...pretty good instructions to follow but didn't like the illustrations as much as I have in other drawing books. Still it was fun and I gave this book 3.5 out of 5 stars!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredible. Very well explained and steps are simple and easy to follow. I follow Peggy's business Instagram (@thepigeonletters) and learned to hand-letter from watching her great videos. I've taken her classes on Skillshare also. Highly recommend her and her products.

[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.

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Botanical is used here in the sense that the original would be studied by a botanist. This book has nothing to do with the exquisite botanical drawings of the 19th century and it's the drawing version of the color by numbers.

[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!