How to Draw a Peony Composition: Step-by-Step Tutorial

Today, I’m going to show you how to draw a composition with peony flowers to fill in a corner of a page.

If you have not yet seen my step by step tutorial on how to draw a peony flower (I walk you through every step!), definitely do that first because I will NOT be walking you through the flower portion; this tutorial is all about putting it all of the pieces together.

Prefer watching over reading? Feel free to skip right to the video and see these in real-time! ??

First Things First…

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Tools Mentioned In This Tutorial:

Micron Pens, sizes 1, 3 & 5
A Pencil
An Eraser
White Paper

Step 1: Pencil in your guidelines

Using your pencil, draw in some light circles for the flowers, some bigger and some smaller. Try to think of the quantity in uneven number, i.e. 3, 5 or 7 flowers. It really helps in keeping the look of your composition more natural.

Step 2: Using your Micron 3 pen, draw in your peonies

Starting with the bigger ones, work your way to the smaller ones.

Feel free to rotate your paper as you work, if it makes it easier!

Note: Be sure to draw your flowers facing in different directions! Rotating your paper to hit the different angles will definitely help.

Step 3: Fill in the empty spots with leaves

Now, I am going to look for any spaces or gaps in my composition, and fill those parts in with leaves, vines, and berries, starting off with a grouping of the bigger leaves.

If you haven’t checked out my video where I go into detail on leaves and berries, please do so before continuing on with this part!

I like to leave the leaves (get it?) running off of the page a little because it really frames the page quite nicely.

You’ll also notice some of the leaves are going to run behind the flowers.

This next part is totally optional!
If you think your composition looks full enough, leave it as is. I am going to add in a few berrie because I think they are really cute!

Step 4: Erase all of your pencil guidelines

Step 5: Add the finer details using your Micron 1 pen

Step 6: Thicken your lines for contrast, using the Micron 5 pen

I’m going to go over all of the petals, and the outside and the middle line of all of the leaves.

Final expert tip: Squint your eyes and take a step back; see if you notice any weird empty spaces.

And that’s a wrap!

Make sure to check out my step-by-step tutorial for drawing a peony flower if you haven’t already, along with the rest of my floral videos!