How to Draw a Lotus Flower (7 Great Steps)

At first, I recommend that you practice the individual lines that make up a flower. You need to do them confidently, without trembling in your hand. Experience will come after repetition. Take a few sheets of office paper (or any other paper you don’t feel sorry for). Soak a brush in water, squeeze it on the edge of a glass, dip the tip in ink, squeeze it slightly again and try to make two lines that form one lotus petal. You will be more comfortable if you hold the shaft of the brush almost vertically. Start from the top tip of the petal, slightly pressing the thin tip of the brush. Then make a slight flexing tug. After that, make a mirror stroke forming the other half of the petal. Repeat several times.

Draw the outer opened petals. Add nice, thin streaks to each petal. To make it easier to write the fine lines, imagine mentally touching the paper with just one hair of your brush. Spend a few practice sheets until you feel confident in your hand.

Now let’s begin writing the lotus leaf. Practice writing the lotus leaf on a piece of test paper. The lotus leaf looks like a big umbrella. First use the tip of the brush to draw the veins. Allow a couple of minutes to dry.

Then, right on top of the veins, fill the entire area of the sheet with broad wet strokes of yellow watercolor and ink mixture. Broad strokes can be made with the same brush as thin lines, but not with the tip, but with the entire surface of the hair, pressing the brush firmly against the paper. Keep the shape of the sheet partially, make the edges jagged, more expression in the strokes. Quickness and confidence are the key to success in painting on rice paper. Paint the foot of the sheet by lightly pressing down the brush head, holding the shaft almost vertically.

On rice paper to the lotus, finish drawing the dragonfly with quick strokes. As you draw the ink onto the brush, gently squeeze the fleece from the edge of the palette (or glass) to remove any excess moisture. Add a leaf to your painting (as if tucking it under a flower). First, with just ink on the tip of your brush, draw out the veins. Then put a wet mixture of ink and watercolor yellow paint on the brush (make the mixture in a porcelain palette). The surface of the lotus leaf can already be painted a little slower, allowing the mixture of ink and watercolor to soak in and flow out. You’ll get a nice big leaf if you make wide strokes, fitting them together.

Paint lotus with yellow watercolor directly on top of the ink. Touch the dragonfly and the seed box inside the lotus flower with green watercolor.
You can add a bud and another leaf to the left of the lotus using all the same techniques. First, apply only thin contour lines with ink using the tip of the brush, and then fill the surface with broad, wet strokes, pressing the entire brush pile against the paper. For the bud and the flower, use yellow watercolor well diluted with water, and for the second leaf on the left of the lotus, use a mixture of ink and blue watercolor. Don’t worry if the wet strokes spread beyond the outlines of the ink. For Chinese painting, this is not a marriage, but a highlight.
Draw the feet in ink, and put spontaneous dots on them with the tip of the brush, symbolizing the fine hairs. In damp blue watercolor, make chaotic spots to represent the water from which the lotus and leaf stems emerge.

And that’s it. The picture is ready. It does not have to be “right”. Unplanned undertones, some carelessness of strokes are allowed. The main thing is to convey the vibrant energy of your brush strokes.
You can use the same techniques to paint another composition with the same flower. Replace the yellow watercolor for the flower with blue, and paint the dragonfly in pale pink (to do this, dilute the watercolor strongly with stain). Paint the leaf with ink diluted with water.