How To Draw A Realistic Christmas Tree

Hello it's Emily here. It's just about Christmas time here in New Zealand and so I thought I'd take you through a tutorial on how to draw a Christmas tree. We're going to be using pencil and drawing quite a realistic Christmas tree rather than a cartoon Christmas tree. So it's also a really good tutorial if you want to get better at drawing trees, fir trees or pine trees and getting some more depth and realistic looking textures in those. I've designed the tutorial so that we'll work in pencil to start with and I'll show you how to draw the tree but then if you want to bring your own style to it and maybe use some ink pen or use coloured pencils or watercolour paints then you could do that over top of your pencil drawing. If you do think you're going to want to use watercolour paints then just make sure that you use a wet strength paper, some kind of watercolour paper that's not going to go all wrinkly. There's one really important trick to getting a more realistic looking fir tree and I'll show you that very soon but we'll start with drawing the basic shape so grab a pencil and follow along with me. The first marks we make are just to plan out the size and the shape of the tree and it's really important to keep your sketching lines light so that you can draw over them later on. The basic shape of a fir tree is a long triangle shape. First sketch a centre line for the trunk and then add that long triangle for the shape of the tree. It can be a long and skinny tree or a short and wide tree, whatever size you like. When you look at a Christmas tree you'll see how the branches extend out from the trunk on different levels. Sketch in the levels where you'll later on draw in the branches and the levels are closer together at the top and further apart at the bottom where the bigger branches are. Now here's the important trick to getting a more realistic looking Christmas tree. The branches of a Christmas tree extend to each side and also to the back and the front. The shape of each branch is kind of like a long curved triangle and we can add a few shapes like this underneath to look like the leaves or the needles. The branches on each level are pretty much the same length but the branches that point directly towards us are foreshortened which means we can't see the full length of them. We need to draw the front branches to look like they're coming towards us so instead of drawing them like this, draw them wide and short like this. Notice how now the center branch is still on the same level as the other two branches. If you want to get a really natural look try to draw the branch shapes with broken lines rather than a single outline. Practice drawing the side and front branches on another piece of paper and when you're ready start from the top of your tree and sketch in three branches for each level. One in the center, one on the right and one on the left. Keep your sketching lines light and remember to draw the branches that reach towards the front as wide shapes that stay on the same level as the other two branches. Each level of branches should come out from under the level that's above it and to keep it natural looking you could change the angle of the branches slightly for each level. Notice how I'm using one strong line for the top of the branch and then broken lines for underneath the branch. When you're drawing in the center branch it might help to start with that triangle shape at the bottom so that you know that you're going to be on the same level as the other branches. Great work if you've made it this far. Now you should have a pretty good drawing of a fir tree. If you're creating a Christmas drawing now is the time to sketch in some decorations. If you're not adding a Christmas element then draw in a simple trunk at the bottom and skip along past the decorations to see how to add some shading. Otherwise you could test out drawing some baubles, some bows and some stars and then add these to your tree. Some of the decorations might be partially hidden between the branches. Before adding any shading or any colored pencil clean up your drawing by erasing any lines that are no longer needed. If you want to create a line drawing then you could stop here and darken up the outlines with a pencil or with an ink pen and then add some color. If you're planning on adding color it's best not to add too much pencil shading or your colored drawing might end up a bit gray. But if you want to continue with pencil we can add more depth to the tree by putting in some shading and some texture. To create a realistic tree it's important to have light values, middle values and dark values. So imagine where the light source is coming from. Mine's coming from the top and slightly to the right. This means that the top of any branches on the right hand side will have a little bit more light than the branches on the left hand side. And it also means that all of the branches will have a shadow underneath them. Starting from the top and working your way down add some texture and shading to the underside of each branch to create a shadow. I'm using a kind of a flicking motion to create a texture that follows the direction the needles would be pointing in. Try to keep it natural looking by changing the length and the direction of the needles. Not like this, but more like this. Use the flicking motion to add texture and use your pencil on its side to shade in some shadow. Underneath each front branch is a good place to add in some shadow. But generally make sure you keep the top of each branch light as this is where the light would naturally be hitting. If you've included decorations make sure you add some shadows to the bottom of your decorations as well and also to the trunk. If you think your tree looks a little bit thin then you can add extra branches to fill in the spaces. Create contrast by darkening the shadows and the textures with a 6B pencil. Even if you've got into this stage with pencil drawing you could go over the top with fineliner ink pen and erase your pencil. Or you can add a bit of color to a pencil drawing with some colored pencils or watercolor paints and allow your drawing to show through. Now that you know how to draw a Christmas tree with pencil the style is really up to you so just have some fun and make it your own. If you're going to be adding lots of colored pencil or watercolor paint then you might want to erase some of the pencil first. I hope you enjoy using this tutorial to create Christmas cards or decorations or to just get into the Christmas spirit while getting a bit of drawing practice done as well. If there are other types of trees you'd like me to make a tutorial on please let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to make something for you. I'd also really appreciate your support in growing this channel and you can do that by hitting the like button or hitting the subscribe button if you would like to see some more tutorials in the future. Thanks for watching and Merry Christmas!