Cute Thank You Cards Palm Tree Drawing Easy

Sweetiepie is an artist and a blogger. See more of her artwork by visiting the website listed on her profile page.

Learn how to draw a Southern California palm tree on a card.

Drawing by J Hanna

Why Are Palm Trees Associated With Southern California?

Residents of places such as Southern California will see many picturesque palm trees on their daily walks. Originally, palm trees were planted along roads to help people locate where their houses were back when orange fields covered this region. Over time, the palm tree has become an iconic symbol of Southern California. One thing I enjoy doing is gazing up at the palm fronds blowing in the wind contrasting beautifully against the cerulean sky on a sunny day.

I decided to make a handmade card with a palm tree on it to celebrate the beauty of Southern California. Some people assume you need fancy crafting paper to make a card, but a beautiful card can be constructed by folding a blank sheet of paper in half and drawing a picture on it. Palm trees are easy to draw because they have long stems with fronds draping down.

Experiment and have a little bit of fun when it comes to drawing your own palm trees! I decided to shade in my palm trees with colored pencils for this project. The card is a quarter-fold card made with blank computer paper.

I drew a palm tree on the front of the handmade card.

Drawing by J Hanna

1. Sketch the Tree

Draw a picture of the palm tree on the front. This palm is like many seen here in Southern California: tall with a thin trunk and narrow fronds.

Coloring in the parts of the palm fronds that are a bit shadowy.

Drawing by J Hanna

2. Add the Dark Green Color

Use a dark green colored pencil to add the darker portions of the palm tree fronds.

Coloring in the lighter portions of the palm fronds.

Drawing by J Hanna

3. Add the Highlights

I used a lighter green colored pencil to create the highlights on the palm fronds. The contrast between the dark and the light colors on the palm tree gives the illusion of giving dimension to the drawing.

In this stage of the drawing I have added more of the light green highlighting to the palm tree fronds.

Drawing by J Hanna

4. Add More Details

In this stage of my drawing, I continued to add more light green to the palm fronds.

In this phase of the sketch all of the fronds of the palm trees have been colored in.

Drawing by J Hanna

An In-Progress Shot

The palm tree looks like it has a bit more dimension now that all of the fronds have been colored in.

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Read More From Feltmagnet

This video illustrates how the palm tree fronds have now been colored in. I love the alternating light and dark green pattern I used for the fronds, which gives dimension to the palm tree.

I used a sepia and brown colored pencils to shade in the trunk of the palm tree.

Drawing by J Hanna

5. Color in the Trunk

I used a sepia and brown colored pencil to shade in the trunk. The sepia color was used to create the shadow effect on the trunk of the palm.

Here is my completed palm tree drawing with the beautiful aqua colored sky.

Drawing by J Hanna

6. Fill in the Background

I used an aqua-colored pencil to fill in the sky surrounding my palm tree. My enthusiasm always runs high when I finish a drawing for a card—I am going to scan the design so I can print out more cards with this illustration!

The Completed Card

This video shows what the completed palm tree cards look like with its brilliant colored pencil hues. There is no better way to capture the beauty of southern California than drawing a picture of one of our many palm trees. Only the Washingtonian palms are native to the SoCal region—the rest of the palms were imported from other regions.

SweetiePie (author) from Southern California, USA on August 24, 2012:

Thanks, Carol!

carol stanley from Arizona on August 23, 2012:

This is a great tutorial with easy to follow instructions. You certainly did a great job on this hub and one I am going to bookmark.

SweetiePie (author) from Southern California, USA on June 15, 2012:

Thanks, CristyWrites!

Christy Birmingham from British Columbia, Canada on June 15, 2012:

What a neat idea for a hub! The steps seem easy to follow with the way you lay out the hub.

SweetiePie (author) from Southern California, USA on June 13, 2012:

Thanks for your comments, pinkhawk and incomeguru!

SweetiePie (author) from Southern California, USA on June 13, 2012:

Hi Logoonlinepros,

I never deleted your comments, but these showed up in my spam file for some reason. Hubpages seems to have an odd idea about what it calls spam. Sorry, because I really value your comments!

logoonlinepros from Houston on June 12, 2012:

My comment is not better than this beautiful and creative work....:) Once again thanks.

Oyewole Folarin from Lagos on June 10, 2012:

I wish i could be as creative as you are in drawings. Thanks for sharing this wonderful hub.

pinkhawk from Pearl of the Orient on June 10, 2012:

Wow! This is really cool, art attack!! ^_^ Thank you for sharing.

SweetiePie (author) from Southern California, USA on June 09, 2012:

Hi Logonlinepros,

I appreciate your comments!

logoonlinepros from Houston on June 09, 2012:

I must appreciate this great effort. I really enjoyed this precious article with beautiful design ideas. Thanks for everything SweetiePie.

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Source: https://feltmagnet.com/drawing/Drawing-A-Palm-Tree-On-A-Card

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