A vines drawing gives you all the charm of a garden without the fuss of painting a whole landscape. Pick a wall, a door, a fence or a gate, let a single climbing plant wander across it, and you have a finished piece before the light changes outside your window.
Below are 29 settings for colored pencil, from a stone cottage wrapped in ivy to a kiwi vine heavy with fuzzy fruit. Each one is sized to fit a single sitting, so scroll through, pick whichever vine calls to you first, and get your pencils out.
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Ivy climbing a stone cottage wall is the easiest place to start, because the wall gives you a grid to hang everything on. Sketch a loose rectangle of stone blocks in light pencil first, uneven sizes, slightly wobbly lines, then let one thick ivy stem zigzag up from the bottom corner.
Build the stones with Payne’s grey and warm grey hatching, leaving some blocks almost bare for sunlight. Add ivy leaves last in two greens, overlapping them so the stem mostly disappears, which is the trick that makes climbing plants look believable rather than stuck on.
If the leaves start looking too uniform, vary their size as they go up, smaller near the top where new growth is thinner. A grey or taupe marker works instead of pencil for the stone base if you want faster coverage.
Today’s tip: draw the ivy stem before any leaves, so the growth direction reads clearly underneath the foliage.
Palette: Payne’s Grey,Warm Grey,Sap Green,Olive Green
Climbing roses over a garden arch ask you to think about proportion before you touch color. Draw the arch itself first as two simple curved uprights meeting at the top, keeping the structure a touch narrower than feels natural since the roses will bulk it out visually once they’re added.
Work the wooden arch in light brown hatching, then scatter rose clusters along both sides with denser growth near the top where the plant has had longest to climb. Use rose pink for the open blooms and a deeper pink or red for the shadowed centers, with sap green leaves tucked between.
If the arch starts to look crowded, remove a few leaves rather than adding more roses, bare paper reads as light and keeps the climbing roses from swallowing the structure entirely. For color lovers short on pink pencils, a rose marker blocked in first and refined with pencil on top saves time. For more rose settings like this one, the rose painting ideas collection has plenty to borrow from.
Today’s tip: keep the arch narrower than it looks right, the roses will fill it out.
Palette: Rose Pink,Deep Carmine,Sap Green,Burnt Sienna
Morning glories on a white fence turn on perspective, since a picket fence running away from you needs to shrink convincingly. Draw the pickets getting shorter and closer together toward one side of the page, a simple trick that instantly suggests the fence receding into distance.
Leave the fence almost entirely white, just a thin grey line along one edge of each picket to suggest sunlight from the left. The morning glory vine twists along the top rail with trumpet flowers in sky blue and lilac, their throats left pale or touched with a hint of yellow.
The mistake here is making every flower face forward. Turn a few blooms sideways or half closed, since morning glories close by afternoon and a mix of open and closing flowers adds more life than a row of identical trumpets. No blue pencil on hand, a light wash of blue marker under pencil detail works just as well.
Today’s tip: shrink the pickets gradually toward one edge to set up the perspective before adding any vine.
Palette: Sky Blue,Lilac,Pale Yellow,Sap Green
Wisteria over a blue front door is about light source once you’ve placed the door itself. Decide where the sun sits, say upper left, and let that side of the wisteria clusters stay paler while the right side of each hanging bloom cluster goes deeper in lilac and violet shadow.
Sketch the door as a simple rectangle in a clean cornflower or denim blue, then let wisteria drape from an unseen support above the frame, the clusters hanging in loose teardrop shapes rather than straight lines. Small individual petals inside each cluster can stay suggested with short pencil strokes rather than drawn one by one.
If the wisteria looks stiff, round off the bottom of each cluster and let a few stray tendrils hang free of the main mass. A violet marker blocked under pencil shading saves time on the deeper clusters if your lilac pencil feels too pale alone.
Today’s tip: pick one light direction before shading the clusters, and keep it consistent across every hanging bunch.
Palette: Cornflower Blue,Lilac,Violet,Sap Green
A grapevine on a pergola gives you a texture challenge worth slowing down for. Draw the pergola beams first as a simple crosshatched grid, three or four horizontal beams over two uprights, kept loose and a little uneven since perfectly straight lines look stiff against organic vine growth.
Let the grapevine’s main stem twist around one upright before spreading leaves across the top beams. Grape leaves are broad and lobed, bigger than most vine leaves in this list, so draw them generously and overlap several for a sense of shade underneath the pergola.
Grape clusters go in last, small circles touching each other rather than floating separately, shaded with a deep plum on one side and left paler on the other for roundness. If the clusters look too neat, smudge the pencil slightly with a blending stump so they read as soft fruit rather than beads.
Today’s tip: draw grape clusters as overlapping circles, never as single isolated dots, so they read as bunches.
You Will Need
- blending stump or tortillon
Palette: Sap Green,Plum Purple,Warm Grey,Burnt Sienna
Sweet peas climbing a bamboo teepee is a fast one, so it suits the ten-minute version well. Draw three or four bamboo canes leaning together at the top in a simple teepee shape, then wind a thin tendril line up each cane before adding any flowers.
In ten minutes, sketch loose sweet pea blooms in rose pink and lilac near the top third only, with a few pale green leaves scattered lower down, and call it finished. Given forty minutes instead, work down the whole teepee with flowers at different heights, add tiny curling tendrils reaching for the next cane, and deepen the shadow where one cane crosses another.
The canes themselves go in warm tan with a few darker knots marked along their length. If bamboo pencils feel too yellow, a light sienna works fine as a substitute.
Today’s tip: keep the flowers clustered toward the top of the teepee first, that’s where sweet peas reach soonest and it reads correctly even in a quick sketch.
Palette: Rose Pink,Lilac,Tan,Pale Green
Clematis around a lamppost follows naturally from the sweet pea teepee, another narrow upright for a vine to spiral around. Draw the lamppost first as a tall thin cylinder with a lantern shape at top, kept simple, a rectangle with a peaked roof is plenty.
The clematis flowers are the real draw here, large flat blooms with pointed petals, drawn bigger than you’d expect, in violet or deep pink with a paler starburst center. Let the vine spiral loosely around the post rather than running straight up, since a dead straight climb looks like a ribbon, not a plant.
If the lamppost looks flat, add a single soft shadow line down one side in warm grey to suggest the metal curving away from the light. No violet pencil handy, mixing a little blue over magenta gets you close enough.
Today’s tip: draw the clematis petals pointed and flat rather than rounded, that shape alone makes it read as clematis instead of a generic flower.
Palette: Violet,Deep Pink,Pale Yellow,Sap Green
Jasmine around a window frame rewards a light hand, since the flowers are small and the charm is in restraint rather than density. Draw the window frame first, a simple rectangle with crossbars, in soft grey or white left bare, then let the jasmine vine trail along the top and down one side only rather than circling the whole frame.
Jasmine flowers are tiny five-petaled stars, white or the faintest cream, so draw them mostly as outline with just a touch of pale yellow at the center. The real work goes into the small dark green leaves, which should outnumber the flowers by a good margin to keep the vine looking like a real plant and not a string of flowers.
If the window looks too busy, remove flowers rather than leaves, jasmine is subtle and a few blooms against plenty of green reads more convincing than a flower on every leaf.
Today’s tip: draw more leaves than flowers, jasmine’s charm is in its scent, not its petal count, so the drawing should feel mostly green.
Palette: White,Pale Yellow,Dark Green,Warm Grey
A vine-covered garden gate lets you combine wood, metal and foliage in one small scene. Sketch the gate first as simple vertical slats with one diagonal brace, kept a little rustic rather than perfectly ruled, then decide which vine covers it, a mix of green ivy and small pink flowers works well and ties nicely into several other ideas on this list.
Shade the wood in warm brown hatching with the grain running along each slat, leaving the hinges and latch in cooler grey to separate the metal from the timber. Let the vine grow thickest around the latch side, since that’s usually the part of a gate left undisturbed longest.
If the gate looks too flat, add one strong cast shadow underneath it on the ground, a quick band of grey, which grounds the whole scene instantly. Brown marker under pencil hatching speeds up the wood if you’re working toward the quicker end of a sitting.
Today’s tip: let the vine grow thickest around the latch and hinges, that uneven coverage sells the idea of years of neglect.
Palette: Burnt Sienna,Warm Grey,Sap Green,Rose Pink
Hops climbing a barn wall is a good test of texture, since both the hop cones and the barn boards reward a confident, varied touch. Draw the barn wall as wide horizontal boards first, a few knots and gaps marked in, then let the hop bine, that’s the correct word for its twisting stem, wind diagonally up and across several boards at once.
Hop cones look like small soft pinecones, papery and pale green, so build them with light overlapping curved strokes rather than one solid shape, leaving plenty of white paper showing through each cone for that papery look. Leaves are large and maple-like, drawn bigger and bolder than the cones to give the vine some weight.
If the cones look too solid, go back in with a kneaded eraser and lift a few light streaks out of each one, which restores that dry, papery texture instantly. A dull olive marker works under the pencil for the barn boards if brown feels too warm for this one.
Today’s tip: lift light streaks out of each hop cone with a kneaded eraser once it’s shaded, that papery texture is hard to get any other way.
You Will Need
- kneaded eraser
Palette: Pale Green,Olive Green,Warm Grey,Burnt Sienna
Passion flower vine on a trellis is the most intricate flower on this list, so give it the most time and work from the center outward. Draw the trellis first as a simple diagonal lattice, then place the passion flower’s center structure, that distinctive crown of thin filaments, before the petals around it.
The filaments radiate out in a ring, alternating white and violet in short straight strokes, with five or six broad petals in pale lilac or white behind them. Get this center right and the rest of the flower almost draws itself, since the petals are simple ovals compared to the filament crown.
If the filament ring looks messy, count them as you go, an odd number like nine or eleven reads more natural than a too-even ring. For anyone without a fine-point pencil for those thin filaments, a sharp white gel pen laid over pencil color gives a cleaner result.
Today’s tip: draw the filament crown before the petals, everything else on this flower is built around getting that ring right first.
You Will Need
- white gel pen
Palette: Pale Lilac,Violet,White,Sap Green
Ivy growing over an old bicycle shifts the vine onto an object instead of architecture, which is its own kind of fun. Draw the bicycle first in simple geometric shapes, two wheel circles, a diamond frame, before any ivy touches it, since getting the proportions of the bike right matters more than the foliage.
Once the bike reads correctly, let ivy climb up through the wheel spokes and along the frame as if the bicycle has been resting against a wall for years. Leave the handlebars and seat mostly bare of vine, those raised parts would be the last the plant reaches, which keeps the drawing readable rather than a green blob.
If the wheels look lopsided, use the diameter of one wheel as your measuring unit for the whole bike, the frame length and handlebar height should each compare simply back to that one circle. A rust-orange pencil touch on a few bare metal spots adds believable age without extra drawing.
Today’s tip: use one wheel’s width as your ruler for the rest of the bicycle, it keeps both wheels and the frame honest in scale.
Palette: Sap Green,Rust Orange,Warm Grey,Olive Green
Honeysuckle in a hedge with a bee adds a living visitor to the vine, so place the bee before you finish the flowers around it, that way the composition builds toward it rather than squeezing it in last. Sketch a loose hedge shape in the background with soft rounded edges, then let honeysuckle trumpets poke out from the top in cream and soft pink.
Honeysuckle flowers have that distinctive long tube flaring into thin curled petals, so draw the tube first, then the petals curling back like small flags. The bee sits on or just beside one flower, drawn simply, an oval body with light stripes and two small translucent wings left mostly as outline over the paper.
If the bee looks stiff, angle it slightly toward the flower rather than straight on, which gives it a sense of movement even sitting still. No pink pencil for the honeysuckle blush, a very light red pencil applied with minimal pressure gets the same soft tint.
Today’s tip: draw the bee at a slight angle toward the flower, a dead-on view always reads more rigid than one turned a little.
Palette: Cream,Rose Pink,Golden Yellow,Sap Green
A vine-covered balcony in Italy brings in architecture again, this time with ironwork and a strong eye level to settle first. Decide if you’re looking up at the balcony from the street or straight on at eye level, since that choice changes how much of the railing’s underside you can see, and draw the simple curved ironwork scrollwork before adding any vine.
A trailing vine with small pink or red flowers works well draped over the railing and spilling down a little below it, the leaves drawn in two greens to suggest both sunlit and shaded foliage. Keep the wall behind the balcony a warm terracotta or ochre, blocked in loosely so the ironwork and vine stay the focus.
If the ironwork looks too mechanical, soften a few of the curls with a slightly wobbly line rather than a ruler-straight one, old ironwork is never perfectly even. A terracotta marker under light pencil hatching speeds up that warm wall color considerably.
Today’s tip: pick your eye level before drawing the railing, looking slightly up at it reads more like a real street view than a flat straight-on balcony.
Palette: Terracotta,Rose Pink,Sap Green,Olive Green
Nasturtiums trailing from a window box is a cheerful, fast one to add after the quieter Italian balcony. Draw the window box first as a simple rectangle, then let round nasturtium leaves, which are almost perfectly circular with the stem attaching in the center, spill generously over its front edge.
The flowers come in warm orange, red and yellow, funnel shaped with a little spur at the back, scattered among the round leaves rather than lined up neatly. Vary the flower colors across the box, two orange, one red, one yellow, so it reads as a real mixed planting rather than a single repeated bloom.
If the leaves look flat, add a few curved vein lines radiating out from the center point of each one, since that round leaf shape needs the veins to read correctly or it can look like a plain circle. An orange marker base under pencil shading on the flowers saves time if you’re working the quick version.
Today’s tip: draw the nasturtium leaf veins radiating from a single center point, that detail is what separates it from a plain circle.
Palette: Orange,Golden Yellow,Deep Red,Sap Green
Pothos trailing from a shelf indoors takes the vine theme inside for a change of setting, and it suits the quick ten-minute version nicely if you’re short on time. Draw a simple shelf edge or the rim of a pot first, then let several long pothos strands trail down the page, each leaf a pointed heart shape marbled with two tones of green.
In ten minutes, two or three trailing strands with simply shaded leaves is plenty, keep the marbling loose, just a patch of pale green dropped into each darker leaf while the pencil layers are still soft. Given forty minutes, add more strands at different lengths, vary the leaf sizes as they trail further from the pot, and work in a stronger yellow-green variegation pattern on a few leaves for interest.
If the trailing strands look too stiff and straight, add one gentle curve or kink partway down each one, since real pothos vines rarely hang in a perfectly straight line.
Today’s tip: vary the leaf sizes along each trailing strand, smaller near the tips, which reads as newer growth and keeps the whole vine from looking uniform.
Palette: Dark Green,Pale Green,Yellow Green,Warm Grey
A trumpet vine on a porch post calls for careful perspective again, since a vertical post needs to feel like it’s standing straight even with a vine wrapping around it. Draw the post as a simple cylinder with the two outer edges curving very slightly inward at top and bottom, that subtle curve is what makes a straight post look three-dimensional rather than flat.
Trumpet vine flowers are long and narrow, flaring at the mouth, drawn in warm orange-red with a yellow throat, clustered in small groups rather than scattered singly. Let the vine’s woody stem visibly grip the post in a few places with small tendril-like holdfasts, since trumpet vine famously clings hard to whatever it climbs.
If the post looks flat despite the curved edges, add one soft shadow line down its shaded side in warm grey, which does more for the rounded illusion than any amount of extra vine detail. A deep orange marker under pencil for the flower bases speeds up this one considerably.
Today’s tip: curve the two outer edges of the post very slightly inward, that small adjustment alone makes a plain cylinder read as rounded.
Palette: Orange Red,Golden Yellow,Warm Grey,Sap Green
Virginia creeper turning red in autumn is the moment to let your warm pencils do most of the talking. Draw the climbing surface, a simple section of fence or wall, lightly in the background, then build the five-lobed creeper leaves across it in a gradient from deep crimson at the oldest growth to orange and even a little green at the newest tips.
Work each leaf with the veins radiating from a central point, same as the leaf shape itself, and vary the red tones leaf to leaf rather than using one flat crimson throughout, real autumn color never turns uniformly. Overlap the leaves generously, since Virginia creeper grows thick and dense by the time it colors up.
If the reds start looking muddy, work light to dark in clean layers rather than scrubbing color on heavily all at once, and keep a little bare white paper between some leaves so the color stays fresh rather than solid. For more seasonal drawing ideas with this kind of warm palette, the village scene drawing ideas make a nice pairing.
Today’s tip: vary the red, orange and green across different leaves rather than coloring them all the same shade, that variation is what reads as true autumn color.
Palette: Deep Crimson,Orange,Olive Green,Warm Grey
Climbing beans in a vegetable garden bring the vine theme down to earth after the autumn color of the last idea. Draw a simple wooden bean pole or a tripod of two or three poles first, then wind the bean vine’s stem around them in a tight spiral, bean vines twist much more tightly than most climbers on this list.
Leaves are broad and slightly heart-shaped, and the pods hang down in pairs or small clusters, long and slightly curved, shaded a deep green with a paler highlight running down one side of each pod. A few small white or purple flowers near the top of the vine show where the newest pods will form.
If the pods look too straight and stiff, curve each one slightly, like a thin comma shape, since dead straight pods read as plastic rather than fresh. No purple pencil for the flowers, white pencil with the faintest touch of lilac at the base works just as well.
Today’s tip: spiral the bean stem tightly around its pole, far tighter than ivy or roses would, that tight twist is what makes it read specifically as a bean vine.
Palette: Sap Green,Dark Green,White,Burnt Sienna
A vine-covered greenhouse is a bigger structure than most on this list, so plan the glass panes before any foliage touches the page. Draw the greenhouse frame as a simple grid of rectangles, slightly larger toward the bottom and smaller near the peaked roof if you want a touch of perspective, then leave most panes bare white or just a whisper of pale blue-grey to suggest glass.
Let one dominant vine, grapevine or climbing rose both work nicely here, cover the frame along its edges and across the roof ridge, leaving the glass panes themselves mostly clear so the structure still reads as a greenhouse and not a wall of leaves. A hint of green shows faintly through a few panes to suggest plants growing inside.
If the whole thing looks too busy, pull vine growth back to the frame lines only and keep every pane empty, restraint here does more work than more leaves. A pale grey marker wash on a few panes speeds up the glass if pencil alone feels slow.
Today’s tip: keep the glass panes almost entirely bare, that contrast between busy frame and empty glass is what makes a greenhouse read correctly.
Palette: Pale Blue Grey,Sap Green,Warm Grey,Rose Pink
A heart-shaped vine on a wire frame is a sweet, smaller subject after the greenhouse, and it suits the forty-minute version if you want to really finish the foliage well. Draw a simple heart outline first in light pencil as your wire frame guide, then build ivy or a small flowering vine around it so the leaves follow the heart’s curve rather than fighting it.
Keep the frame mostly hidden by foliage except at the very top where the two curves meet, a small gap there reads clearly as wire rather than solid shape. Add a few small flowers, rose pink or lilac, scattered along the lower curves where the heart narrows to its point, since that’s naturally where the eye lands last.
If the heart shape starts to warp as you add leaves, step back and check both curves match before adding more, a lopsided heart is the easiest mistake to make here and the hardest to fix once it’s covered in vine.
Today’s tip: check both sides of the heart match evenly before adding leaves, fixing the shape after it’s covered in foliage is much harder.
You Will Need
- wire frame or circular object to trace the curves
Palette: Sap Green,Rose Pink,Lilac,Olive Green
Black-eyed Susan vine on a fence pairs nicely with the earlier morning glory fence if you want to compare two climbing flowers side by side. Draw a short run of fence, simpler than the picket fence earlier, a couple of flat boards or a low rail is enough, then let the vine’s heart-shaped leaves and flat orange flowers scatter across the top.
Each flower has five rounded petals in warm orange or soft yellow with a distinct dark brown center, that dark eye is what gives the plant its name and it’s worth getting genuinely dark, almost black-brown, rather than a light tan. Leaves are smaller and more pointed than morning glory leaves, which helps the two look distinct if you draw them near each other.
If the dark centers look too flat, add one tiny highlight dot of white gel pen off-center on each one, a small gleam that suggests the slight dome of the flower’s middle.
Today’s tip: make the flower centers genuinely dark brown rather than tan, that strong contrast is what gives this vine its name and its charm.
You Will Need
- white gel pen
Palette: Orange,Golden Yellow,Dark Brown,Sap Green
Ivy on a brick chimney is close kin to the stone cottage wall from the start of this list, but brick gives a different rhythm to build. Draw the chimney as a simple tall rectangle, then mark brick courses in light pencil as a grid of small offset rectangles, staggered the way real brick rows lock together.
Shade the brick in warm terracotta and burnt sienna, varying the tone brick to brick so the wall doesn’t look like one flat color, then let ivy climb up one side, thickest at the base where it’s had longest to grow and thinning as it reaches the chimney pot at top. A few bricks peek through gaps in the ivy to keep the texture readable underneath.
If the brick pattern starts looking mechanical, skip shading a few bricks entirely and leave them nearly white, real brickwork always has some that catch more light than others. A terracotta marker base under pencil detail speeds up the wall considerably.
Today’s tip: vary the tone of individual bricks rather than coloring the whole wall one flat shade, that variation alone makes it look like real masonry.
Palette: Terracotta,Burnt Sienna,Sap Green,Dark Green
A vine growing over a garden statue is a nice test of proportion between two very different forms, stone figure and soft foliage. Block in the statue first as simple rounded shapes, a classical urn or a small seated figure works well, kept deliberately simple since an overly detailed statue will fight the vine for attention.
Shade the statue in cool grey-green, the color old stone takes on outdoors, then let a modest ivy or small flowering vine wind up one side and across a shoulder or the rim, never covering the whole figure since the point is a vine meeting stone, not swallowing it. Leave the statue’s face or most prominent feature mostly clear of foliage so the eye has somewhere to land.
If the statue looks too smooth and lifeless, add a few small cracks or a patch of darker grey-green moss near its base, that touch of weathering sells the idea of years spent in a garden.
Today’s tip: leave the statue’s most recognizable feature, a face, an urn’s rim, clear of vine, so the shape still reads clearly through the foliage.
Palette: Grey Green,Sap Green,Warm Grey,Rose Pink
A kiwi vine with fuzzy fruit is one of the more textural subjects here, since the fruit itself needs a soft, slightly fuzzy edge rather than a clean outline. Draw a simple section of trellis or wire support first, then let the kiwi vine’s broad heart-shaped leaves, bigger and glossier than most leaves on this list, spread across it generously.
The fruit hangs in small clusters, drawn as ovals with a slightly irregular, bumpy outline rather than a smooth curve, shaded in soft brown with tiny flecked texture marks scattered across the surface to suggest that fuzzy skin. A little lighter brown dry-brushed texture, achieved in pencil by using very light, broken strokes rather than solid shading, helps sell the fuzz without overworking it.
If the fruit looks too smooth, go back in with the sharp point of a pencil and add short flicked marks rather than more solid color, fuzz is about broken texture, not deeper shading. A light grey-brown marker base under this flicked pencil texture speeds the whole fruit up.
Today’s tip: use short, light, broken pencil strokes rather than solid shading on the fruit skin, that flicked texture is what makes it read as fuzzy.
Palette: Soft Brown,Dark Green,Olive Green,Warm Grey
A rose-covered cottage doorway brings the climbing rose back for a cozier, more enclosed scene than the garden arch earlier. Draw a simple door and frame first, a solid color door in a soft sage or cream, then let roses climb up both sides of the frame and across the top lintel, denser at the top where they’ve had a wall and roof line to lean into.
Layer the rose colors from pale pink buds near the edges of the growth to fuller, deeper pink blooms closer to the door itself, which draws the eye naturally toward the entrance. Leave the door’s center panel and handle completely free of vine, since a doorway needs to still read as usable and not entirely swallowed.
If the roses start to look like a flat pink mass, vary bloom sizes noticeably, a few large open roses among several smaller buds breaks up the repetition. For a close look at building roses like these one petal layer at a time, the rose painting ideas article is worth a look.
Today’s tip: leave the door handle and center panel bare of vine, a doorway needs to still look usable under all that bloom.
Palette: Sage Green,Rose Pink,Deep Pink,Sap Green
A vine archway over a garden path lets you play with the view looking straight through a structure rather than at it from the side, which is a different kind of perspective problem than the garden arch at the start of this list. Draw the arch itself smaller and set back a little from the bottom edge of the page, with a simple path of two converging lines leading up to it and continuing faintly through the opening.
Cover the arch generously with whatever vine you like best from this list, mixed foliage with small flowers works nicely, keeping the opening itself clear so you can see a hint of garden or sky beyond. That glimpse through the arch is what makes this version feel different from the rose arch earlier, it’s as much about the path and the view through as the structure itself.
If the path doesn’t read as receding, double check the two edge lines actually converge toward the arch rather than running parallel, parallel path edges are the single most common reason a path looks flat instead of walked-on.
Today’s tip: make sure the path’s two edges genuinely converge toward the arch, that convergence is what creates the sense of walking toward it.
Palette: Sap Green,Rose Pink,Sky Blue,Warm Grey
Climbing roses over a garden shed door is a humbler cousin of the cottage doorway, a little rougher around the edges and more fun for it. Draw the shed door as simple vertical planks with visible gaps between them, a bit weathered, then let roses climb up one side only rather than framing the whole door evenly, since sheds tend to get overtaken unevenly rather than symmetrically.
Shade the wood in a greyed, weathered brown rather than the warm fresh tone used for the cottage door earlier, that duller color is what separates a shed from a front entrance. Roses here can be a little wilder and looser than the tidy doorway roses, with a few fallen petals scattered on the ground below for a lived-in touch.
If the shed looks too neat for the theme, rough up a plank or two with a darker patch of warm grey suggesting old weathering, and let one rose climb slightly past the door frame onto the shed wall itself.
Today’s tip: let the roses grow unevenly, thicker on one side than the other, that asymmetry is what makes a shed feel real rather than staged.
Palette: Weathered Brown,Rose Pink,Deep Pink,Sap Green
Ivy curling around a wrought iron bench closes out this list with a nice change of texture, soft leaves against the thin curving lines of metal furniture. Draw the bench first as simple scrollwork, curved iron legs and a backrest with a repeating loop pattern, keeping the lines confident since wrought iron is defined by clean, deliberate curves rather than sketchy ones.
Let ivy curl around one arm and up through part of the backrest, following the existing curves of the ironwork rather than cutting across them, which makes the vine feel like it grew into the design rather than sitting on top of it. Keep the seat itself mostly clear of vine so the bench still reads as something you could sit on.
If the ironwork looks shaky, draw the scrollwork curves slowly and in one continuous motion rather than several short strokes, wrought iron reads cleanest with long confident lines. For other small garden scenes that pair architecture with planting like this one, the flower vase painting ideas offer a nice next project.
Today’s tip: let the ivy follow the bench’s existing curves rather than crossing them, that choice alone makes the vine look grown rather than added.
Palette: Warm Grey,Sap Green,Dark Green,Olive Green
What to Do Next
Start with whichever setting you already have pencils out for, a scrap of white paper and your greens and pinks are enough to finish one of these today. Ivy on a wall or sweet peas on a teepee are the fastest first picks if you want a quick win before trying something more detailed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the easiest vine to start with in colored pencil?
Ivy on a flat surface like a wall or chimney is easiest, since its leaves are a simple repeated shape and the background grid of stone or brick guides your layout before any foliage goes down.
How do you stop a drawn vine from looking flat?
Vary leaf size and density along the stem, thicker and larger near the base, smaller near new growth, and let a light shadow line sit behind the vine wherever it crosses its support structure.
What colored pencils work best for fresh green leaves?
A true sap green mixed with a touch of olive or yellow green gives the cleanest fresh leaf color, applied in light layers rather than one heavy pass so the paper’s brightness stays visible underneath.
Should I draw the structure or the vine first?
Draw the structure first, wall, arch, fence or post, in light pencil so the proportions are settled before any foliage, since vines are much easier to correct partway through than a crooked archway.
How do I make climbing flowers look less repetitive?
Vary bloom size and openness across the vine, mixing full open flowers with smaller buds and a few half-closed ones, rather than drawing every flower at the same stage and size.
Have any thoughts?
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