10 Ways to Draw Laurel Wreaths

Laurel leaves are the “it” design element right now. Anything you can possibly imagine creating — from a whimsical and approachable logo to an artistic wedding suite — can benefit from one. You don’t even have to get that formal; I include laurel wreaths on a significant number of personal correspondence, and sometimes even on Post-it notes. Needless to say, I am a fan.

For today’s blog post, I came up with ten different ways to draw the endearingly adaptive laurel wreath. These mini-tutorials are in order from least time-consuming {~1 minute} to most time-consuming {~10 minutes}. I felt a bit like Zoolander naming them all, but a girl’s gotta tell her laurel wreaths apart somehow, right? Let’s get started with the simplest of the ten:

1. The Julius Caesar

The Julius Caesar is a simple half laurel wreath that gets straight to the point: it’s here to frame letters or words {or a bust of Julius Caesar himself, if you are feeling especially Roman today}. To make it, you’ll just start with a slight crescent.

Then, starting at the bottom, draw progressively smaller leaves leading up to the top.

Color in the leaves if you want to. I used a gray/green colored pencil for a vintage look.

The Julius Caesar is your class A all-purpose laurel wreath. I always draw the left laurel leaf first, write out my word, then draw in the right one. If I’m framing letters, I draw the letters/monogram first, then draw in both the right and left laurel leaf. The Julius Caesar is best in pairs, like parentheses.

2. The Brutus

The Brutus essentially double-crosses the Julius Caesar, thus its name {I really hope I’m not the only one laughing here}. The Brutus is also easy to create; however, I am drawing it in pencil first to ensure everything is relatively symmetrical. Simply draw a more splayed Julius Caesar crescent on the left, then draw another one crossing it.

Draw leaves that start out big at the bottom and get progressively smaller as they reach the top, like with the Julius Caesar:

Then go over everything with ink:

And erase.

I used watercolor to fill my Brutus laurel wreath in:

The Brutus is great for framing images, very short words, or monograms/letters. For example, you could use it to frame “Mrs.” or “Mr.” above an address on an envelope, or put an illustration of a camera in it for a simple photography logo.

3. The Sweetheart

The Sweetheart is a simple laurel wreath, and also our first enclosed circle piece. To make it, trace around a round object … I dug up some circular lip balm.

Next, draw in leaves that resemble wide hearts.

Try to keep them evenly spaced, but since the laurel wreath is hand-drawn {and that’s a lot of its appeal}, don’t preoccupy yourself with being too terribly exact.

Go over your circle with pen.

Then go over the leaves.

Erase, then you can color it in or do whatever else you want with it. It looks elegant black and white, too.

The Sweetheart is a wonderful wedding invitation laurel wreath because it is pretty, but it doesn’t distract too much from anything it’s paired with {e.g. information on an invitation}. It is great at framing monograms or letters, and it embroiders well because of its simplicity. It also looks fantastic in letterpress!

4. The Aunt Mildred

This no-frills laurel wreath seems like it should be framing a black and white photo of your stern old Aunt Mildred in her youthful days {when she was still looking stern}. Like the Sweetheart, it’s not complicated to make. Start with a free-handed oval like this one:

Then go over it with a pen.

Start to draw miniature versions of the heart-shaped leaves seen in the Sweetheart.

Continue to go around the oval with these little heart leaves. Notice I didn’t create the leaves in pencil first; that’s because the small leaves make spacing variations much less noticeable than they are in the Sweetheart wreath, which has larger leaves.

Fill in your leaves, if you’d like. I chose to fill mine in with blue because that seemed like a nice, vintage color that would go with a black and white or sepia photo.

I like this laurel wreath style for … well, you guessed it: digitally framing old photos. However, I can see it looking good with a very vertical element inside — for example, long, skinny letters or a mason jar.

5. The Forest Crown

This is the kind of laurel wreath that would be appropriate on the head of a regal wood nymph. It is simple and sweet, but gets a little more realistic than the other wreaths with a touch of asymmetry. To create it, free-hand a circle.

Now, draw little “branches” or curved sticks over that circle. Try to imagine what this would look like in nature if you had several curved sticks … what would they look like put into a circle?

Add some leaves to your sticks, like this:

Then, of course, go over your pencil drawing with pen.

Erase; then, if you want to, add some color to the situation.

I really love this laurel wreath for just about anything. Its rustic look makes it ideal for nature-inspired invitations, and it would also be an asset as part of a logo. You really can’t go wrong with this one: use if for whatever you want!

6. The Willow

This laurel wreath is beautiful and slightly kinetic, like a weeping willow tree. It is strikingly lovely when colored in with a gray-green.

To create it, begin with a free-handed circle.

Use your pen to trace over that circle with another circle that is a bit wavy and erratic.

Start drawing pointed, somewhat long leaves that overlap and interact with each other, like this:

Keep going!

Once you’re finished, erase the pencil guide circle you created. I used a faded blue-green watercolor on my Willow.

I think the Willow would be beautiful in DIY stationery. Center it at the top of a lovely piece of Italian paper, put your initial {or, if you’re giving a gift, a friend or family member’s initial} in the center, and everyone will be wanting to know where you procured this supremely lovely stationery.

7. The Leafy

The Leafy, as you probably deduced, has the most leaves out of this smattering of laurel wreaths. All the leaves are what makes it fun to look at!

Begin by free-handing a circle in pencil, and give it two tails at the bottom, like so:

Add small-ish, slightly curved lines that stick out on either side.

Add some leaves to each curved line.

Go over the center circle in pen.

And draw over all the leaves in pen.

The Leafy looks so pretty when you add some color to it, so be sure and grab your watercolors, colored pencils, acrylics, or whatever else you’d like to use.

Because the Leafy is so visually striking and a little complicated, it’s best to keep the element in the circle very simple. Letters in a sans serif font {that’s a font without little “feet”, like Helvetica … not like Times New Roman} would be a good bet. A design with very simple shapes would be fine, too. Or: draw this quite large on an envelope and write the recipient’s address inside. Now, that would look cool!

8. The Kris Kringle

You know this laurel wreath is the one on Santa’s stationery; and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. To make it, find a round object to trace around. Enter my trusty old lip balm container.

Draw a little bow shape at the bottom of the circle. If you’re not sure how to draw a bow, just mimic the following image:

Those two diagonal cylinders will become sticks.

Now, begin drawing leaves up the circle two at a time. The leaves need to overlap each other for that lush, thick look.

Go over the whole thing with pen, then erase.

Add some evergreen watercolor and a red bow, and you’ve got a beautifully festive laurel wreath!

If I had kids, this totally would be going on the Santa stationery. Every Christmas when I was young, “Santa” would leave us a letter, and it always struck me as odd that he only seemed to have access to computer paper and a black ballpoint pen; and he and my mom both had this severely left-leaning scrawl. {You did your best, Mom … you did your best.} This laurel wreath on the top of some stationery, framing an “S”, will have my future kids believing Santa Claus is real until they are well into their teens … because that’s how magical it is.

9. The Rosy Crest

If your household is embraces its femininity, this is the laurel wreath you’ll want to use for a family crest. Begin by drawing a banner, as seen in the Hand-Drawn Banner Tutorial.

Draw a slightly oval circle from one side of the banner to the other.

Draw leaves and roses over the oval circle. {Step-by-step instructions for drawing roses can be found in the Amazing Envelopes for a Latté package.} I alternated big and small roses, and had a few little branches sticking out.

Go over everything with pen, then erase your pencil marks.

Roses, of course, are beautiful filled in with red {though yellow would be great here, too}.

Color in your leaves and banner, and you’re ready to put in some text and a crest illustration!

I would recommend writing your surname in the middle on some sort of design; something that represents your family well. Maybe the family cat or dog? A tent if you like camping? Kitchen utensils if you like cooking? Then, in the banner, I’d write “Est. 2010” or whatever is applicable. Family crests are cool and unique, so I say go for it!

10. The English Garden

Full disclosure: I have never seen a garden in England, but I imagine that British gardens are impeccably kempt and bursting with roses {well, in the most orderly of ways that a garden can burst with anything}. Also, the English garden in my mind has a Harry Potter owl sitting on a white picket fence nearby waiting to deliver a beautifully calligraphed letter from Dumbledore. If you are currently reading this from England, please don’t burst my bubble.

Begin by tracing around a round object, and mark the top center, bottom center, right center, and left center. Then draw little guide marks exactly between each of those four marks. On the top, bottom, right, and left, you’ll draw big roses. On the little guide marks, you’ll draw small, dainty roses.

Be sure to let a few leaves stick out beneath each rose.

On the naked lines that remain, draw in leaves.

Go over everything with pen, then erase. Notice that on my leaves, I drew a center line, then several diagonal lines spanning from the center to the edge of each leaf.

Whip out the deepest red coloring tool you have. In my case, that’s a colored pencil.

Pair it with a muted green for some lovely contrast.

This is another laurel leaf that really works for anything … invitations, stationery, monograms, logos, packaging design, etc. As for me, the more I look at it, the more I just want to draw in a little owl holding a letter written in green ink.

It was my pleasure writing this blog post because it’s actually really fun to draw laurel wreaths. I know it sounds strange, but try it … it’s a little bit addicting. I subconsciously found myself flashing a mental image of how I’m going to send our rent check in an envelope with a big version of the Leafy. Now is a great time for laurel wreath-drawing because pretty soon you’ll be writing post-holiday thank you cards and making pretty envelopes to go with those cards. There isn’t a blank thank you card or an envelope around that can’t benefit from a laurel wreath!

If you have more laurel wreath-centric ideas, please let me know in the comments. You always come up with applications I wouldn’t think of in 100 years! In the meantime, have a happy holiday — we’ll talk later this week!

Warmest wishes always,