How to draw a tree

Six frames, one broad-leaved tree. Trunk first, then the branches, then the foliage in separate clumps.

The difference between a tree that looks like a tree and one that looks like a lollipop is almost entirely about the foliage. Most people draw one big cloud on a stick. A real broad-leaved tree reads as several separate masses of leaves at different heights, with sky showing between them, and this sheet builds it that way from the start.

Frame one is the trunk, and it should be wider at the bottom than at the top by a noticeable amount. A trunk drawn with parallel sides looks like a post. Let the base flare out where it meets the ground, and let the two sides be slightly different from each other, because a tree that is symmetrical about its middle is a tree nobody has looked at.

The branches come next, splitting off the trunk and then splitting again. The rule worth remembering is that a branch is always thinner than the thing it grew out of, and it gets thinner along its own length too. Branches drawn at a constant thickness are the second-commonest reason a drawn tree looks wrong, after the lollipop foliage.

Where the branches fork, keep the angles varied. A tree that forks at the same angle every time looks like a diagram of a tree. Some forks are narrow and reach upwards, some are wide and nearly horizontal, and the difference between the two is what gives the crown its irregular spread.

Then the foliage, which arrives as five separate rounded clumps rather than one outline around everything. Each clump sits on its own branch, at its own height, and they overlap without merging. The gaps between them are as important as the clumps themselves — those gaps are the sky you can see through the tree, and a crown with no gaps is a solid green blob.

Draw the edge of each clump as a series of small bumps rather than a smooth curve. Leaves in mass have a lumpy silhouette, and about six or seven bumps around a clump is enough to suggest it. Drawing individual leaves inside the mass is a trap: it takes a long time and makes the tree look worse, because real foliage at any distance reads as texture, not as countable objects.

The last frames add the grass at the base and three fallen leaves beside it. The grass matters because it settles the tree onto the ground instead of leaving it floating. Draw it as a low irregular tuft that overlaps the bottom of the trunk slightly, rather than as a straight line the tree stands on.

The fallen leaves are the small storytelling detail, and they are worth including for a reason beyond decoration: they show what a single leaf from this tree looks like, which is information the massed foliage deliberately hides. A pointed oval with a central vein is enough.

If you want to push the drawing further, try the same tree in winter. Remove all five foliage clumps and you are left with the trunk and branches, and every fork you fudged becomes visible. It is an unforgiving exercise and it improves the summer version enormously.

The six frames are ordered from the biggest closed shape down to the smallest, which here puts the trunk and its bare branches first, then the foliage clumps one at a time, then the grass and the fallen leaves. It is a straightforward order to copy and it is not a rule about how trees should be drawn — starting with the overall silhouette of the crown and working inwards is just as reasonable.

Published 29 August 2026Updated 29 August 2026599 words