How to draw a maple leaf: easy step-by-step master classes for kids and beginners

Maple is one of the largest, most beautiful and widespread trees on earth. Maple forests grow in the middle belt of Russia, in the southern regions of the European part, in North America.

In Canada, the sap of the tree is a national product, and the distinctive and recognizable maple leaf is depicted on the country's flag.

Fascinating drawing of nature

Autumn leaves are painted in richly colored hues, so at school, in drawing lessons, children are often assigned drawings of maple leaves or compositions with them.

You can occupy your child's leisure time with interesting sketching shapes created by nature and painted a bright, colorful palette of autumn. Such activities develop the outlook and observation of novice artists.

If there are no parks or forests with growing trees nearby and no opportunity to collect natural specimens, they can be printed from photos on the Internet to draw a maple leaf correctly.

The result will be a colorful drawing that leaves a charge of positive impressions of working with beautiful nature.

The easiest way

One of the easiest ways, accessible even to children, is the following:

• Start by drawing a triangle with the top slightly shifted to the side.
• At the tops and sides of the resulting figure depict five lobes, and on each of them three teeth, as in the crown.
• In the middle of the bottom edge of the triangle to draw a leaf stalk.
• Looking at a natural maple leaf outline the main veins that are located in the middle of each of the five lobes.

After removing excess pencil lines with an eraser, you can color the leaf in yellow, green, and bright orange.

The Advanced Drawing Method

Looking at a finished drawing of a multicolored, painterly maple leaf, the process may seem too complicated and unattainable. But the step-by-step drawing of a maple leaf, described in detail, is not as difficult to implement on a sheet of paper as it may seem at first.

Start with a cross, the vertical line of which is slightly longer and slanted to one side, and the horizontal line is closer to the bottom. Some asymmetry in the drawing gives much more naturalness to the images of nature from nature.

From the intersection point of the vertical and horizontal, you need to draw two sloping lines, as a maple leaf has a five-lobed structure. Above the vertical are the upper veins of the leaf, sloping as the bottom row, but shorter in length.

To each of the veins you can draw small dashes, sloping to the main lines in an upward motion. The tips of the five main segments are connected by a broken line depicting the zigzags of the outline of the entire leaf.

After the maple leaf is drawn with a pencil, the excess lines are removed with an eraser and one can proceed to coloring in any technique preferred by the author.

Step-by-step description for beginners

Rather complicated drawing for children becomes much clearer and easier if you move exactly according to the paragraphs of the instructions. Any leaf begins to draw with the middle line, which also serves as the main vein, and simultaneously divides it into two equal parts.

The vertical line should visually divide into three equal parts, and from the top point of the lower segment to draw two lines at an angle of 45 degrees, in an upward direction. From the same point to draw two horizontal lines, pointing in the opposite direction.

When the main veins of the maple leaf are built, they can be divided into smaller sections with short dashes.

The outline should be drawn with an irregular, "living" line, as each leaf in nature has its own size and features of configurations, at the same time fitting into a certain pattern characteristic of the particular tree species.

The veins are connected by special scrolls that create a lacy outline. At the same time, all five main tops are made with slightly pointed and elongated prongs.

The final look of the pattern is given by small veins that are arranged around the main ones, slanted at sharp angles. In this case, do not overload the pattern too much by carefully studying a natural sample or a detailed picture of a maple leaf on the Internet.

Tree leaves are usually firmly connected to the stems, which are also depicted as a small stick, slightly widened downward. The place where the leaf is attached to the trunk of the tree should be shown oval, giving volume to the image of a mostly flat object.

Autumn leaves are depicted with a yellow background, on which separate fragments can be painted in green, red or brownish tones. Nature itself will tell you how to pick the right palette of autumn and make the sketch the most realistic.

For the littlest ones, at drawing lessons in kindergarten or elementary school, you can use a template inside which children can draw the veins and color the leaf fragments in different colors on their own.

Geometric drawing

One of the most beautiful leaves from trees has a five-pointed shape and easily fits into this geometric figure. Understanding the mysteries of nature for anyone can begin with the study of patterns in the construction of such a simple and yet complex maple leaf pattern.

Representing a pentagon, standing on the lower horizontal facet in its middle it is necessary to draw a vertical line descending from the top. Above one-third of the point of intersection with the bottom face, you must determine the point that connects with the two side vertices of the pentagon.

Thus, the main veins of the maple leaf will be found, and each vertex will be the pointed end of one of the five lobes. It remains to draw a web of fine lines inside the leaf and start coloring.

Working with a template

There are times when it is necessary to draw or cut out a number of maple leaves for the decoration of exhibitions devoted to autumnal themes. Sometimes several leaves make up compositions on wall newspapers or children's room decorations.

In such cases, you can collect several different leaves from a park or forest stand, and then trace their outlines on a sheet of heavy paper. In this way, several templates can be made, with which the complex, carved outlines of a maple leaf can be easily and quickly reproduced.

They can be made of any materials: colored paper, fabric, plastic, white cardboard, with subsequent coloring.

Drawing leaves with circles

A more complex task involves not only drawing a maple leaf step by step, but also composing an entire composition of such leaves. To work you will need: simple pencils, felt-tip pens, black gel pen, white paper, eraser and a set of colored pencils.

Having set before you a nature in the form of an autumn bouquet consisting of maple leaves, you must begin with a preliminary marking of all the objects present in the composition of the still life.

The back leaves should be larger than the front leaves, and all of them are marked with circles of different diameters. All circles will be divided in half by vertical lines, with the upper points of the intersection then becoming the tops of the leaves.

Each leaf should then be divided into five segments, four of which are located on the sides. All the tails of the composition of five or seven leaves are gathered together and are visible through the transparent glass of the vase. As the leaves have different sizes, their tails also correspond to them in length and thickness.

In each of the five resulting pointed maple leaf blades, you can draw five main veins and loosely outline a pattern of small veins. Use a marker or black gel pen to highlight the main contours of the carved ends of the leaves.

Then you can remove traces of circles and other unnecessary lines with an eraser. When the expressive outline of the bouquet is mostly obtained, proceed to coloring the drawing. The smallest leaf, located in the foreground, should turn out the most vivid and contrasting.

Orange, red and yellow colors can be used in it. Leaves in the background should have a more restrained coloring and differ from each other not only in shape, but also in color. One leaf may be greenish, another pure yellow, and another reddish.

Maple leaves, thanks to their beautiful shapes and unusual colors, have become a symbolic representation of the fall season. Therefore, their images are often used in crafts and drawings.

Picture of a drawn maple leaf