Learn to draw a hair braid

Learning to draw a hair braid?

Follow the post till the end and you find it is not so difficult at all.

Here's a simple pencil sketch for kids, beginners or anyone who is keen to learn the art of pencil sketching. This sketching was done by my 11-year-old daughter who loves sketching with pencil and insists on using pencil nowadays more than color pencils. So while she was struggling to make this sketch, I clicked the pictures of the steps as she proceeded with the sketch and made a picture tutorial for all you with tips for improving the sketch. 

Hair Braid Pencil Sketch

Materials required:

HB pencil, 2B pencil, paper, eraser

Procedure:

Step 01:

Start with the rough outline of the braid, using an HB pencil.

Step 01: Draw Braid outline

Step 02:

Using the same HB pencil, draw the interlocking braid pattern as shown below.

Step 02:  Interlocking braid pattern

 Step 03:
Continue the pattern as you go downwards. Make sure the pattern becomes thinner as you go downwards as the braid becomes narrower towards the end.

Step 03: Continue the interlocking pattern downwards

Step 04:
Now, using a HB pencil only start hatching the braid. Start with a downwards stroke following the curves.

Step 04: Start hatching with HB pencil

Step 05:
Now, using a 2B pencil darken the top and bottom strokes, to accentuate the pattern.

Step 05: Darken the strokes using 2B pencil

Step 06:
Notice, that the mid part is left grey. Use an HB pencil to soften the strokes. You can fill up the middles part which looks white with a very light shade of grey using an HB pencil.

Step 06: Leave the mid parts white or fill up with light grey using HB pencil

Step 07:
Now the final step is to add some loose strands to make the braid look more realistic. Use HB pencil to make the loose strands.

Step 07: Add loose strands

Finally, the braid is done. Observe the sketches of the hair braid below. The long one looks incomplete, with strokes not evenly made. The second one of the left has made over-use of hatches, making it dense and it has lost the realistic effect. The third one on the bottom is closer to the effect we wish to achieve. Clear hatches and pencil strokes, with the 3D effect we wish to achieve.

Hair Braids 

Tip:

• Use a well-sharpened pencil to make clear strokes. Keep sharpening them if the lead of the pencil becomes blunt in between.
• Try cross-hatching to make it more realistic.

The picture below shows the final result we wish to achieve with cross-hatching.

Hair Braid Pencil Sketch

Happy sketching. Have a nice day ahead and stay safe.

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25 different ways to sketch a Christmas tree

Hi there,

Christmas is long gone...and the new year has just begun...so I am a little late in posting this sketching tutorial. Maybe you can learn and use it for the next Christmas...If your child loves to draw, this is one activity that keep him/her occupied for a long time. 

Actually I sketched these for my daughter during the Christmas vacations itself. She was making some greeting cards for her friends during the Christmas break, and was out of ideas. She wanted to draw a Christmas tree differently in every card. So, there I was helping her out. The sketches are very easy to make involving just a few lines.

Picture 01: Pencil Sketches - Christmas tree

You can make use of different shapes and feel free to sketch them. Have a look at picture 02 below. The first five in the entire set makes use of only triangles. It gets a little complicated as we move down towards other options. The 6th one is just a bunch of rectangles, starting from the top, they get bigger as we go down. The 8th one is like a wiggly snake. 9th option is again very simple; begin with a central spine and add a triangle to it. From 10th to 16th, you add the curves to get the spruce effect. the 18th option is just a pile of circles, while the 19th is again just a triangle with a star on the top. Easy ain't it?

Go to 21st option, and its just two triangles one above the other. 

Picture 02: Pencil sketches Colored - Christmas tree

24th option is just adding some eyes and mouth to give it a cartoon look. Children love to draw cartoons. And this one turned out to be a favorite option preferred by my child. The last option is just curvy lines.

Xmas tree sketching - cartoon version

Turns out my daughter used at least 10 of these sketches to make her cards. So my effort was not in vain. 

If you love drawing and sketching, do try them out. I am sure you will come up with more ideas to draw a Christmas tree. 

Hope this tutorial was helpful. Thank you for stopping by.

Have a good day...

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