Drawing a snowflake is a beautiful way to introduce children to radial symmetry and provide them with plenty of artistic mediums to express themselves! Plus, coloring them in is great fun too!
Experienced teachers will find this integrated lesson from Expressive Monkey invaluable when teaching how snowflakes form and which factors affect their designs. It features a presentation, technique demonstration, and all necessary handouts – everything you need for successful activity participation!
1. Start with a Hexagon
This beginner snowflake drawing tutorial effectively introduces students to the concept of symmetry and teaches how snow crystals form and why no snowflakes are alike. This lesson includes both presentation and demonstration for an art project and all necessary handouts to review vocabulary, make snowflake drawings, and assess students.
Start by drawing three intersecting lines onto your paper to form the basis of your snowflake. Be sure to space these evenly so that your finished snowflake will have six sides when completed.
Add small V shapes at the ends of each line to give your snowflake more structure and definition. This will help it stand out amongst its fellow snowflakes!
Make your snowflake more unique by adding details, such as arms. These could be simple bent lines or more exciting shapes like triangles. Finally, finish it by coloring it – try different hues until you find what looks best!
Snowflakes make an exquisite winter decoration, and they look even more stunning when created by you! Our step-by-step instructions make creating your pretty snowflake easy – in just minutes, you can look at its beautiful designs!
For additional winter drawing ideas, be sure to take a look at our free Winter Drawing Page! This resource features various snowflake designs that can make for great projects inspired by winter art!
2. Draw a 6-pointed Star
Snowflakes typically feature six sides or points due to how their formation takes place; water molecules bond together when ice crystals form, then stick to one another until forming into their familiar hexagonal star or hexagon shape. Therefore, when learning how to draw snowflakes, they must feature this number of sides or points to look realistic and natural.
Step two is to use a pencil to sketch the outline for your snowflake drawing before using a darker tool, such as a pen, to fill in its details. Be careful not to erase these guidelines until after finishing your snowflake, as doing so might leave uneven edges.
Once your pencil outlines have been filled in, the next step is adding shapes to create your snowflake drawing. Feel free to get creative here as long as it remains symmetrical: whatever changes occur on either side must mirror one another perfectly.
Make your snowflake more visually stimulating by adding small arms. Or add an intricate circle in the center for added detail, and don’t forget color! Remember, more vibrant is always better, so grab your art supplies and begin crafting today – you may be amazed by what can come from just a few simple lines!
3. Draw a Long Line
Snowflakes are one of the most stunning, delicate features we see in nature, yet each is different; no two snowflakes look the same, making them popular subjects for art, drawings, and paintings over the years.
This drawing activity for kids will help develop fine motor skills while teaching about snowflake shapes and their radial symmetry. Plus, it will surely excite kids for winter and the holiday season!
Start by showing children how to draw a long line on a blank paper, starting close to the left edge and finishing just before its right edge. Encourage them to trace over these lines with darker markers for an added dimension in their snowflake creation process.
Once your snowflake is complete, erase any pencil marks to reveal an intricate snowflake. White or light blue glitter glue can add even more shimmer for added effects and extra shine!
Add texture to make your snowflake even more realistic by creating little creases and bumps in some of its lines and altering their widths to develop depth and depth of field. Just remember to be patient as well as keep practicing!
4. Draw Two Angled Lines
Once your snowflake has its basic form, add details by drawing two angled lines on each intersection, ensuring they are as symmetrical as possible. Add crystal shapes for an even more realistic result.
Now that you have your basic snowflake shape, the next step is drawing another circle, this one slightly more prominent than before, leaving some space between this and its predecessor for the ripple effects of your foundation lines to continue rippling outward.
To complete this step, add some more arms to your drawing. Make sure they are symmetrical and placed along each intersecting line in an even manner. Add more details or shapes for realism in your snowflake’s arms at this stage.
Snowflake shapes offer an excellent opportunity for students to learn about radial symmetry, as they can be modified easily to show different types of radial symmetry. It can also be an engaging introduction to geometry for younger elementary students who might not yet be ready for complete lessons on this topic.
Once your snowflake is complete, erase its construction lines from your paper and admire its beauty! It’s an enjoyable way to celebrate winter and nature’s gifts. To take it further, why not display it by creating a simple paper cutout and adding glitter or glue? This will allow the colors to pop!
5. Draw a Hexagon
No matter if it’s decorating walls or embellishing Christmas presents, snowflakes offer endless decorating opportunities. Not only are they fun to draw, but they can also add dimension and shimmer to your artwork. Try coloring in different colors and mediums to give it even more dimension!
Before beginning to create, however, it’s wise to sketch some guidelines onto your paper or canvas surface. This will ensure accuracy as you make your final product. Begin with a circle and draw a line through its center as the base of your snowflake; next, draw a hexagon shape whose sides should all have equal-length sides – this will form the body of your snowflake.
For a hexagon, start by drawing two vertical lines that are shorter than the previous one, joining their endpoints together with another horizontal line at regular intervals until your composition resembles that of a six-sided hexagon.
Repeat this process using five more lines at 60-degree angles from each other that are of equal length as the original line, forming the six sides of your snowflake shape. Join all six lines together at once to complete this shape.
Now that you understand how to draw snowflakes, you can create your designs! Remember to keep the shapes symmetrical and limit unnecessary details when drawing snowflakes. Once your drawing is complete, erase any extra lines so your creation doesn’t become overcrowded before painting or gluing it onto something – then share your masterpiece online! Enjoy creating, sharing, and showing others.
