How to Draw Kazakh Art

What You'll Need

• •Wool felt or thick colored paper in cream, rust, deep red, black, turquoise, and ochre; use these for cut appliqué shapes or layered collage.
• •Graphite, charcoal, a fine black pen, and a broad brush for planning, petroglyph lines, and rough surface marks.
• •Gouache, tempera, or acrylic paint, plus a dry brush and a slightly damp sponge for matte, uneven color.
• •Silver thread, metallic paint, foil, or small turquoise beads for jewelry-like borders and reflective details.
• •Toothbrushes, sandpaper, fabric scraps, and coarse paper for creating worn felt, stone, dust, and weathered architectural textures.
• •A drawing tablet with software such as Krita, Procreate, or Photoshop, using textured brushes, symmetry guides, masks, and multiply or overlay layers.

Step by Step

1. 1

   1. Choose a clear subject and format

   Begin with one readable subject, such as a horse and rider, a yurt-like dwelling, a falcon, a mountain ridge, or a turquoise-tiled building framed by the steppe. Use a wide canvas with generous sky, or a square format that resembles a textile panel. Reduce your palette to three dominant colors, one dark structural color, and one metallic or light accent. Make a small thumbnail first and mark the central axis so the ornament will feel balanced.

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   2. Build the large felt-like silhouettes

   Block the main forms as flat, interlocking shapes instead of modeling everything with gradual shading. Think like a felt-appliqué maker: cut the horse, cloud, mountain, roof, and border from solid pieces with clean edges and a few deliberate notches. Overlap shapes so the foreground separates clearly from the middle ground and sky. Keep the silhouette recognizable at thumbnail size before adding any ornament.

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   3. Establish nomadic ornamental structure

   Create a border or central medallion using repeated curves, hooks, leaves, horns, diamonds, and stepped forms associated with Central Asian ornamental geometry. A ram's-horn-inspired curl can be useful, but simplify it into a balanced abstract motif rather than copying a sacred or museum object without context. Reflect major motifs across the axis, then introduce small variations in spacing so the result does not look mechanically stamped. Leave breathing room between the ornament and the subject.

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   4. Add the landscape and open sky

   Reserve a large, quiet field of pale blue, cream, or dusty gold for the sky; the emptiness is part of the composition, not unfinished space. Place low rolling landforms, distant mountains, or a single horizon line below the focal subject to create steppe scale. Use broad horizontal bands and sparse grass marks instead of filling the background with detail. Let one small figure, animal, or structure emphasize how expansive the environment is.

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   5. Introduce turquoise-tiled architecture

   If architecture is present, simplify it into a strong façade, dome, arch, gate, or wall rather than drawing every construction detail. Lay turquoise tiles as rhythmic squares, diamonds, or small irregular blocks, and interrupt them with cream grout lines and dark shadow shapes. Keep the tile pattern aligned to the building's perspective, but allow a few chipped or missing pieces to create age. Contrast the cool turquoise with warm ochre earth and a restrained red or rust accent.

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   6. Draw petroglyph-like linework

   Use a dry, uneven black-brown line to add spare images of animals, hunters, carts, sun symbols, or abstract figures on rock-like areas. Make the marks angular and economical, with slightly varied pressure and occasional breaks, as if scratched into stone rather than inked with a perfect pen. Keep these signs secondary to the main subject and do not present invented symbols as readable historical writing. Cluster them on a boulder, cliff, or border panel so they have a believable surface.

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   7. Add silver and turquoise detailing

   Place metallic accents where light would naturally catch: along jewelry, harnesses, trim, medallions, architectural edges, or ornamental outlines. Paint silver as small cool highlights beside darker gray shapes instead of covering every surface with bright white. Repeat turquoise beads or dots in groups of three, five, or another consistent rhythm to connect the figure, border, and architecture. Keep the brightest accents near the focal point so the decoration supports the image rather than flattening it.

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   8. Make the surface tactile and weathered

   Break up smooth areas with dry-brushed fibers, rubbed pigment, tiny scratches, softened edges, and irregular flecks. For felt, use short directional fibers and slightly fuzzy overlaps; for stone, use granular speckles and chipped corners; for metal, use sharp highlights surrounded by dull tarnish. Add a very thin warm dust glaze over selected lower areas to unite the scene without making every color brown. Finish by sharpening only the focal silhouette and a few ornamental edges, leaving secondary areas worn and quiet.

Going Digital

In digital painting software, begin with a limited palette and separate layers for silhouette, ornament, architecture, texture, and highlights. Use selection tools or vector shapes for appliqué geometry, a symmetry guide for borders, and textured opaque brushes for felt and stone rather than soft airbrushes everywhere. Clip a low-opacity noise, paper, or fabric texture to each major shape, then erase parts of it so the surface remains irregular. Use Multiply for dusty scratches and tile recesses, Overlay or Screen sparingly for silver, and a mask to keep turquoise ornament inside architectural planes.

Common Mistakes

FAQ