Crystal Drawing – A Fun and Mystical Drawing Tutorial
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Learning how to draw crystals and gemstones is a great opportunity for artists to learn how to create organic and geometric shapes. The use of straight lines is not something that is typically found in organic drawings, and is unique to the process of drawing gems. Due to their intricate geometric shapes and their distinctive texture, there is a huge importance placed on the understanding of lighting when learning how to draw a gemstone. Understanding lighting and how it affects shadows and lights in your drawings of gems is very specific to these structures. Learning how to draw geometric shapes and unique textures in the context of aesthetic crystal drawings is a great way to improve your attention to detail.
Table of Contents
Step-by-Step Guide on How to Draw Crystals
In this tutorial on how to draw crystals and gems, we will look at two different shapes that are common in crystal formations. We will work out the basic outline of the crystal and then work on creating segments within the crystal to give it a unique gemstone aesthetic. From there we will work out the shading within the drawing, paying close attention to the effects of subtle shading. Now that we know what to expect in this aesthetic crystal drawing process,
Drawing a Geometric Crystal
Let’s start with drawing a more classical geometric crystal that is a more common crystal formation. These types of crystals are often broken off from larger crystal formations, which results in these straight geometric lined structures. These straight structures are unique as organic natural structures.
Let’s take a look at the few steps required to draw this aesthetic crystal drawing.
Step 1: Forming the Crystal Outline
How we outline a crystal is like an elongated diamond shape. crystals also can have little protruding smaller crystal formations that stick out from the larger crystal structure. As long as we keep straight lines in the structure, we will have an accurate depiction of a crystal outline.
Step 2: Forming Segments in the Crystal
This is where we move on to drawing in segments with line work to establish different sections in the crystal. We can do this by drawing straight lines that flow from the tip of the diamond shape and flow into the larger surface area in the middle of the crystal outline.
We can play around with how we form segments; they don’t have to follow a specific formation, but keeping them straight is going to create an accurate depiction of crystallization in the gem.
Step 3: Shading in the Crystal
Once we have created a few segments in the crystal outline, we want to start shading the crystal. To achieve the subtle transparent aesthetic in the crystal, we want to keep shading darkest along the segmentation lines.
The idea is that we create little gradients that move from dark to light in each little segment. However, we want to make sure that the shading is not too dark, to retain the transparent quality. try to create little gradients of shading along the segment lines.
As we shade in the segments, we want to make sure that it is quite light in the larger surface areas of the crystal. We want to make sure that all the darkened shading marks remain along the lines that define the different segments in the crystal.
We can also play around with adding in some line work and lined shading to establish a few more straight geometrical features in the crystal. often crystals are quite jagged and compact with lines near the edges because of being broken off from a larger structure.
We can draw smaller lines that form along the diagonal sides of the crystal, by doing this we give more texture to the broken areas of the crystal. Whereas the middle area with lesser and larger segments can remain vertical and less busy with line work.
Drawing an Organic-Looking Gemstone
Now that we have a more geometric crystal drawing, let’s try to create a more jagged and less straight-lined crystal structure. This is more of an uneven crystal formation that has more of a rock-like structure.
Let us take a look at how to draw this unique structure.
Step 1: Forming the Crystal Outline
We start the same way as we did for the previous crystal drawing, however, this time we want to draw a more jagged and unevenly lined diamond outline. This time we can also be a little more sporadic with segments within the gem drawing.
Step 2: Forming Segments in the Gemstone
As we draw in segments, we can also add in little cracked lines to define a breaking quality in the gemstone. By doing this we give it a more realistic quality of being broken off, or in the process of being broken.
Step 3: Shading the Crystal
Once we have created various segments within the crystal drawing, we can move on to shading the structure. We can do this by following the same process as before for the straight-lined crystal, where we shade along the segment lines.
We want to keep shading light within the larger open surface areas of the gemstone. Again, we want to make subtle gradients that flow from the segmented lines into the open surface areas, keeping the lines dark and the larger areas quite light. By doing this, we will create a transparent quality in the crystal drawing, giving it a unique aesthetic crystal drawing aesthetic. Take your time, softly shading in the crystal structure and working along the segment lines.
You can also work in some softer segment lines within the larger surface areas to suggest crystallization subtlety visible within the structure. Make sure you take your ice with shading the drawing of gems.
Remember to stop at the right time, we don’t want to shade the structure too much as this will deviate from the unique crystal aesthetic. And there you have it! How to draw crystals and gems in a few simple steps.
Tips and Tricks to Remember
- Establish the outline first. Work on the outline of the structure and then add details and segments.
- Play around with segments in the crystal. Segments are often vertical for straightened crystals, and more diagonal and sporadic for uneven-looking gems.
- Shade along the crystal lines. Keep the shading more along the segments lines, and lighter in the open surface areas of the crystal for a transparent effect.
- Don’t shade in too much. Try not to shade in too much, as this will take away from the subtle crystal texture.
Learning how to draw crystals and gems is quite a unique task due to the very specific aesthetic of crystals. However, it is quite simple because of the lack of detail required, as it is more a matter of knowing how to be quite subtle with shading. As long as you keep the shading along the segment lines within the crystal and less in the surface area of the crystal, you will have an accurate drawing of gems.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do You Draw a Crystal’s Texture?
Crystals form in various ways; however, the segmentation quality is always the same. When crystals break, they form segments in the structure. In some cases, these segments can be straight, and in other gems, they can be more sporadic and jagged. Once you have a diamond-like shape or rock-like outline, you then can play around with different segmentation styles. These segmentations within the structure are what will give the crystal its unique crystal-like aesthetic.
How Do You Shade in a Crystal?
Once you have an accurate crystal drawing, with its various segments, the trick is to create a transparent aesthetic. How we do this, is by using the segmentation lines to guide us in our shading. We want to make sure we always shade along the segment lines, creating subtle gradients that shift into the larger surface areas in the crystal drawings. We want to keep the segment lines dark, with shading that flows into the larger surface areas and becomes lighter as it does so. The dark-to-light shift is going to create this specific transparent effect within the crystal drawing.
Matthew Matthysen is a multidisciplinary artist. He completed his fine art degree, majoring in History of Art and Contemporary Drawing Practice at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Before joining acrylgiessen In 2020, Matthew worked part-time as an art teacher at Reddford Blue Hills High school. Matthew creates drawing and painting tutorials for acrylgiessen and captures them not only photographically and in written form. He also records the creation of his works in his own creative studio as in video format, from which later with a voiceover and a video editor also drawing tutorials for the Youtube channel of acrylgiessen are created.
Learn more about Matthew Matthysen and about acrylgiessen.
