Three Different Ways to Draw a Snowflake

Want to make an envelope into instant holiday mail art? Draw a snowflake. Feel like giving your sketchbook page a dose of festivity? Draw a snowflake. Want to practice using your dip pen in a fun and seasonally appropriate way? Yep — you can draw a snowflake. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make three simple but impressive snowflakes that will add holiday cheer to any project!

Basic Guidelines for Every Snowflake

Before you draw a snowflake, you’ll need to make pencil guidelines. Ideally, you’ll draw these guidelines with a ruler and a pencil. You’ll want to make these guidelines before creating any of the three snowflake tutorials in this article! First, draw a symmetrical cross.

Next, intersect your cross with two slightly shorter lines. These lines should make an “X”.

You’re now ready to tackle any of the snowflake tutorials below!

1. Flourishes and Diamonds Snowflake

This snowflake features a classic “S” flourish motif plus wintery icicle-inspired diamonds! It’s a classically beautiful snowflake suitable for any elegant project.

To make this snowflake, begin by creating your basic pencil guidelines. Then, position your pen in the center of the snowflake, and draw an “S” flourish along one of the longer pencil lines. The flourish should get progressively bigger, then progressively smaller.

Next, draw several evenly-spaced waves along one of the shorter lines.

Finally, “close” the waves by drawing another set of waves on the opposite site of the line.

Continue to work your way around the snowflake, drawing “S” flourishes along the long lines and waves along the shorter lines.

Wait for your ink to dry, then gently erase your pencil lines!

2. Geometric Snowflake

I love this non-traditional snowflake because of its various sizes of squares — they remind me of ice crystals! This is a great snowflake to include on funky holiday projects.

To make this snowflake, start with your basic snowflake pencil guidelines. Then, simply draw several different sizes of overlapping diamonds along each guideline.

Continue to draw various sizes of diamonds until all of the pencil guidelines are covered.

Wait for the ink to dry, then erase the pencil guidelines.

3. Stitches and Loops Snowflake

This snowflake boasts tiny snowflake-shaped “stitches” and generous loops! It’s a great fit for both elegant and playful holiday projects.

As with the previous two snowflake tutorials, you’ll want to start by drawing your basic snowflake pencil guidelines. Use your dip pen to make several “phone cord” loops along one of the longer guidelines. The loops should start off small, peak in size in the center, then diminish again.

Next, draw a series of evenly-spaced “X”s along the a shorter guideline. Intersect each of those “X”s with a short line that follows the pencil guideline. The crossed X’s should start off small, get large in the center, then end small again.

Continue to draw loops along the longer lines and X’s along the shorter lines.

Once you finish and the ink dries, erase the pencil guidelines!

What to Use These Snowflakes For

You can, of course, put these snowflakes on any holiday/winter project that you like! These would be great to include on chalkboards, in sketchbooks, bullet journals, or mail art!

So far, I’ve enjoyed putting these snowflakes on envelopes. You’ll notice in the envelope below that I made up a super funky snowflake on the left, and I used Finetec Moon Gold to draw little diamonds throughout the piece.

Regardless of what project you decide to incorporate these snowflakes into, I know that you’ll enjoy drawing them! I think they’re just great — simple, quick, and fun! If you have any questions about how to make them, please feel free to ask in the comments. 🙂 In the meantime, enjoy these last few days leading up to Christmas/New Year’s! As always, thanks so much for reading TPK, and enjoy your weekend!

Warmly,