How to Draw Les Nabis Art

What You'll Need

• •Cold-press watercolor paper or smooth mixed-media paper, plus a pencil, kneaded eraser, and ruler for planning broad shapes and borders.
• •Gouache, poster color, or matte acrylic paint in a restrained palette of cream, ochre, dusty rose, muted blue-green, brown, and deep gray.
• •Flat and round brushes, including a small brush for decorative contours and repeated motifs.
• •Colored pencils, oil pastels, or a dark watercolor pencil for soft linear accents and imperfect hand-drawn edges.
• •A drawing tablet with pressure-sensitive stylus and a digital painting program offering layers, textured brushes, selection tools, and opacity controls.
• •A small collection of references showing domestic interiors, textiles, wallpaper, plants, furniture, and cropped photographic compositions.

Step by Step

1. 1

   Choose an intimate, ordinary subject

   Select a quiet interior such as a table beside a window, a seated figure reading, a bedroom corner, or a vase on patterned cloth. Keep the emotional scale small and personal rather than dramatic or theatrical. Decide on one symbolic mood—calm, waiting, secrecy, tenderness, or solitude—and let the objects and color support it. Gather two or three references, but plan to simplify them instead of copying every detail.

2. 2

   Plan a cropped, flattened composition

   Make several thumbnail sketches using only three or four large value masses: wall, floor or table, figure, and major object. Crop at least one form at the edge, such as a chair, shoulder, curtain, or tabletop, so the scene feels like a captured moment. Avoid placing everything symmetrically or creating a deep tunnel of perspective. Overlap shapes slightly, but keep the background close to the picture plane and use only enough perspective to identify the setting.

3. 3

   Build a muted color map

   Choose a limited palette of about five to seven colors and dull bright pigments by mixing them with a shared neutral such as gray, umber, or a complementary color. Assign each color a role before painting: a dominant wall color, a secondary textile color, a dark contour family, and one restrained accent. Check the thumbnail in grayscale to ensure the figure and focal object separate from their surroundings. Favor related, low-contrast color relationships over realistic local color.

4. 4

   Block in large, flat shapes

   Paint or fill the wall, furniture, clothing, floor, and major objects as broad, mostly even areas of color. Use opaque gouache or matte digital brushes so the surface feels designed rather than atmospherically modeled. Do not begin with facial features, wood grain, or small shadows. Leave some underdrawing visible if it adds warmth, but correct the main silhouette before adding decoration.

5. 5

   Simplify forms with decorative contours

   Redraw important boundaries with a soft, broken contour rather than a mechanically perfect outline. Vary the line weight: make the edge of the focal figure or object slightly stronger, and let secondary edges fade into nearby colors. Describe anatomy and furniture with a few elegant curves and angular planes instead of detailed modeling. Keep contours expressive and slightly irregular so they feel made by hand, not traced from a photograph.

6. 6

   Use pattern as compositional structure

   Add wallpaper, carpet, curtains, clothing motifs, or tablecloth designs as organized pattern fields. Repeat a simple shape—leaf, stripe, oval, flower, tile, or wave—and vary its spacing or scale to prevent mechanical uniformity. Let pattern wrap across surfaces while remaining relatively flat; it should describe the surface and guide the eye, not create photorealistic texture. Repeat one motif in two or three areas to connect the whole image.

7. 7

   Suggest depth without conventional realism

   Create separation through overlap, color temperature, scale, and value grouping instead of strong cast shadows or detailed linear perspective. Place a darker shape beside a lighter shape to clarify the figure, then soften or interrupt the boundary where you want the scene to feel atmospheric. Use compressed planes behind the subject and avoid making every receding edge converge accurately. A tabletop can tilt upward, a wall can dominate the frame, and a patterned surface can remain visually frontal.

8. 8

   Add symbolic accents and atmosphere

   Choose a few meaningful details—a lamp, closed book, flowering branch, mirror, bowl, or window—and simplify them into clear signs rather than literal descriptions. Repeat or echo their colors in the figure, textile, or background to make the symbolism feel integrated. Add a translucent veil of a related color over selected areas, or soften a few edges with a dry brush, to create a quiet, dreamlike unity. Keep the atmosphere subtle; too much haze will weaken the strong decorative design.

9. 9

   Edit for harmony and finish

   Step back and ask whether the eye travels through the pattern toward one main focal area. Remove details that compete with that area, strengthen two or three key contours, and restore any large value shapes that became fragmented. Check that the palette remains muffled and that the cropped edges feel intentional. Finish with a few small, high-contrast marks—such as a pupil, fold, handle, or flower center—then stop before the image becomes over-rendered.

Going Digital

Work with separate layers for the underdrawing, large color planes, pattern, contours, and final accents. Use textured opaque brushes with pressure-sensitive opacity, but keep the brushwork broad and matte; avoid glossy gradients, airbrushed realism, and excessive layer effects. Make patterns with a simple custom stamp or repeated selection, then erase or distort portions so they retain a handmade rhythm. A low-opacity multiply layer in a muted brown or blue-gray can unify shadows, while a final color-balance or overlay layer should be used sparingly to bring the palette into one harmonious family.

Common Mistakes

FAQ