Hand-Drawn Arrows Tutorial

Yesterday, I was watching a documentary about the history of the United States. Of course, one of the first scenes depicted British pilgrims looking up, terrified, at Native Americans on a hill in rather intimidating war regalia. While this would have caused most viewers to ponder the complex relationship between the pilgrims and the Native Americans, of course my eye darted to the Natives’ arrows. “Hand-drawn arrows!” I thought, “That’s it! My next tutorial.”

Don’t get me wrong: I know you know how to draw an arrow. What I am going to explore today is different ways to draw an arrow and creative uses for uniquely-illustrated arrows. I am going to begin by covering basic black-and-white, can-draw-them-anywhere arrows. These arrows consist of a simple formula:

To draw a simple arrow, you’ll first start with a horizontal or vertical line. I have drawn several horizontal lines here because I am going to show you several different ways to draw arrows.

Add a tip. Any size will work, and any shape that remotely resembles a triangle or a “>” will work as well.

When I’m drawing in black, I like to fill in my arrowheads.

And then you can add whatever variation of feathers, lines, or shapes you want to the other end of the arrow.

That’s it! These are your garden variety of arrows; the type of design that is great for quick envelope art, doodling, or making a stamp. Each arrow should only take about a minute to create.

Now that we’ve covered standard arrows, I’m going to take it up a notch and show you how to make these arrows:

The design process is the same; simply draw a line, then add an arrowhead to the front and a feather or two to the back. Except: you’re going to use a waterproof ink to draw these. Micron pens or a dip pen and India or sumi ink are great candidates! I have opted to use a dip pen {with a Leonardt EF nib} and sumi ink here.

Once your ink has had a chance to dry, paint a blob of watercolor on the feather of each arrow.

Your goal is simply to add an abstract puddle of color; no intricate brushwork needed. You’ll end up with an arrow {or, in this case, arrows} that look incredibly cool considering the amount of effort {not much!} that went into them. These arrows would make for a great greeting card illustration, a simple art print, or a design element to use in envelope art.

You can use the same concept with a dip pen and walnut ink.

Simply draw your arrows {feel free to use any of the arrow styles in this post as models}, then fill them in with colored pencils.

While these arrows are more time-consuming than the watercolor blob arrows, they are colorful and visually interesting. {I may just be biased since I love walnut ink.}

My favorite type of arrow is the watercolor arrow.

To create one like it, you’ll need a teeny-tiny brush … I’m using a Winsor and Newton Cotman 111 round brush; but any small-bristled brush will work. Start by creating several rectangles in various sizes, and leave ample space in between each rectangle.

Next, fill in the rectangles with any color of your choosing {I like turquoise} …

… And add another color as well, if you’d like. Now is a good time to start on the arrowhead, as well.

Paint some faint feather or leaf shapes on the back of the arrow.

Then add some shading to the leaves/feathers with another, darker watercolor.

And that’s it! This arrow would be awesome for stationery, blog or website illustrations, and general artwork {paint several to create one illustration, then sell it as an art print, iPhone case, or whatever on Society 6!}.

I know what you’re thinking now: “Yeah, okay — now I know of several ways to draw arrows, but how am I going to use this new knowledge?” While there are many other ways to use arrows than the two ideas I am going to show you, these two utilizations are my favorites. First, I love snail mail, and arrows have a natural place in mail art because they naturally draw attention to information.

For the address above, I used the Flytrap, Wishbone, and Sans Serif font styles from the Hand-Lettering for a Latté worksheet set. {All script was written in my beloved Kaitlin style calligraphy.} I drew two arrows with very simple embellishments to point to the address. I loved how the black and white turned out on the mint envelope!

Probably my favorite utilization of arrows is as part of a monogram. {As you know from the coat of arms tutorial, I’m all about personalization.}

Monograms with arrows are super simple to make, and can fit the bill for a number of uses {which I will enumerate below}. To make a hand-drawn arrow monogram, begin with a square piece of paper. Draw a line from opposite corner to opposite corner with a pencil and a ruler.

I used the technique explained in the watercolor calligraphy tutorial to draw the body of the arrows over my pencil lines, then I grabbed the detail brush to make the arrowheads. You can just use the detail brush for the whole thing, though.

As far as the feathers are concerned, anything goes. For this monogram, I drew some unwieldy little amorphous shapes that call to mind ruffled feathers.

If you want to, you can draw in a little bow in the center tying together the two arrows. I never see any arrow monograms in which the arrows are tied together, so this is my shot at standing out with this concept. But — really — do what you think looks good!

For my own monogram, I calligraphed a blue “B” at the top, which stands for “Bugbee” {my last name}, in Janet Style calligraphy. I then wrote three more letters: “L” for “Lindsey” {that’s me!}, “T” for “Treat” {my middle brother}, and “B” for “Baker” {my youngest brother}. When you are making your monogram, though, you don’t need to have four letters. Feel free to think outside the box! Put your initial on one side, your significant other’s initials on the opposite side, a heart at the top, and the date you met or married on the bottom. Or, make a personal monogram for stationery: your last initial at the top, then your first and second initials on the left and right — then either leave the bottom empty or draw in something that represents you. No matter what you decide design-wise, monograms can be used in a variety of ways. You can use them on wedding invitations, personal stationery, make them into logos, display them as art in your home … and I’m sure there are other things you can do with them; but I’ll stop there.

All of the design styles I have shown you today {save for perhaps the watercolor arrow} can be made into stamps; simply draw your arrow, scan it into your computer, and upload it to rubberstamps.net. Arrow stamps are all the rage on Etsy; but you can make your own cheaper and prettier by DIYing! Arrow art is very popular lately, so feel free to mix and match these styles to make art prints. I have noticed artists lining up different styles of arrows vertically or horizontally and selling them as quirky art prints. You can’t deny that arrow art has a certain appeal … probably because of the clean lines.

Though today’s tutorial was simple, I hope you learned something and gained some inspiration! If you’re wondering about the Kaitlin premium worksheet revision {I’m adding a section covering letter connections}, that will be released with Saturday’s blog post; so hang tight. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy drawing some arrows. Remember: simple design elements like arrows always pair well with other design elements like laurel wreaths and banners!

Thanks very much for reading; talk to you again soon!

Warmly,