Fire drawing has proven to be quite tedious and difficult for many artists, even those who are quite skilled. A reason for this could be because fire is so dynamic – it has no set shape or definition and is quite unpredictable, shifting and reshaping constantly. A fire sketch can be even more difficult to master thanks to the fact that fire is somewhat translucent, so it can also be confusing to see exactly where the flame ends and the air begins.
How to draw flames? Right now it’s pretty cold outside and I’m sitting next to a warm fire. But, whether it’s cold where you are or not, it’s always a good time to add fire to your paintings and drawings by learning how to draw flames. Drawing fire can be a challenge because it has no definite structure. The trick is to try to show the flames in motion while working within a static shape. To do this, you want your lines to vary, using color to define the flames and add nuance to your fire.
How To Draw A Face Step by Step
The first drawing is a small campfire that I made only by pencil and the second is a symbolic fire or symbolic flame drawing in color.
symbolic fire or symbolic flame drawing
In cultures around the world, fire has been used symbolically to indicate a range of events and emotions – from destruction to rebirth, and from pain to passion and purification
The mythological phoenix was said to vanish in the flames when old, only to emerge from the ashes reborn.
This drawing tutorial focuses on a specific type of fire – the campfire – but the skills learned in this easy, step-by-step drawing guide could be applied to any application in which you need to draw a flame.
All you will need is a pencil and a piece of paper. You may also want to use an eraser to correct any mistakes, and colored pencils, markers, or crayons to color your finished drawing.
Each step of this drawing tutorial is accompanied by an illustration. In each illustration, new lines introduced in the current step are highlighted in blue.
Drawing fire can be quite hard and frustrating because of its weird shapes and counterintuitive colors. It is also emitting light in a very specific kind of way, which makes it even harder to draw.
But don´t be discouraged in this guide I will break the progress and the form of fire down in easy to follow steps that you can follow along.
Before we start though, you will need the right tools.
So let´s get started.
How to Draw a Fire in Color
Try to look as straight at the piece of paper before you as possible to avoid as much perspective on your drawing surface as possible.
Try to understand the general forms of the fire. Look at fire and try to see if you can find any forms, that repeat a lot. Remember these shapes and use them in your drawing and you will find, that it will instantly look more like fire.
This tip is useful for every part of drawing in general, by the way.
Take your graphite pencil and draw all the following lines, until we get to coloring, very light because you will erase most of them later on.
The center of the flame will, later on, be white.
Start by drawing the bottom part of the flame first. The bottom part is a simple half-circle.
Then from the half-circle, a lot of c-shaped lines go up and form the general shape of the core of the fire.
We created this step-by-step guide on how to draw fire in 6 easy steps to make sure that learning to draw fire won’t burn you!
Fire Drawing Picture
Using your circle and dot guideline, as well as the main flame that you’ve already drawn, go ahead and give your drawing some depth by drawing additional flame layers – both on the inside and outside.
Begin with the inner flame. To do this, use the main flame as a guide. Draw the inner flame so that it is smaller than yet similar to the main one.
Once the inner flame is drawn, go to the outside. Here, draw some outer layers that extend out from behind various parts of the main flame. It’s at this stage where your cartoon fire really starts to take shape!
And… when you’re all done the final and outer portion of your drawing – that’s it! Sure, you could go on and on and on if you really wanted to. The point is, this gives you a solid example of how to draw cartoon fire.
Anything else? Sure, color your cartoon fire drawing with yellow orange and red! And, add a couple small separate “pieces” of flame at the tips to give your fiery drawing a “flickering” appearance.