So, I felt like drawing something simple today, and a diya came to mind. You know, those little oil lamps. Seemed easy enough to try.
First thing, I grabbed my usual sketchbook and a pencil. Didn’t want anything complicated, just a quick sketch to get the idea down. Found a comfy spot to sit.
I started with the base. Just drew a curved line, sort of like a shallow bowl shape. Then closed it off at the top with a slightly flatter line. It looked a bit wobbly at first, so I erased and redid that bottom curve a couple of times until it felt okay. Getting that symmetry right is always tricky for me.
Next, I had to add the little lip or spout where the wick rests. I drew a small extension on one side of the bowl’s rim, pinching it slightly to a point. This part needed a bit of adjusting too, to make it look like it belonged to the base and wasn’t just stuck on.
Then came the flame. This is the fun part, right? I drew it rising from the spout. Started with a teardrop shape, basically. Made the bottom wider where it connects to the imagined wick, and pointy at the top. Added a couple of wavy lines inside the flame shape to give it that flicker effect. Didn’t want it too big or too small, just proportional to the lamp base.
I thought about adding color, maybe grabbing some colored pencils. But honestly, I liked the simple pencil look. Decided to just add a bit of shading instead. Put some light shading on the body of the diya to give it some roundness, and made the area around the flame’s base a bit darker. Added a little shadow underneath the whole thing so it didn’t look like it was floating.
And that was pretty much it. Took maybe 15 minutes total? It’s not a masterpiece, for sure. The lines are a bit shaky here and there. But it looks like a diya, you can tell what it is. Pretty happy with how it turned out for a quick practice sketch. It was nice just focusing on drawing those simple shapes.
