Poinsettia Pattern Design: The Holiday Flower in Prints

The red part of a poinsettia is not the flower. Those big colored shapes are bracts, which are modified leaves, and the actual flowers are the tiny yellow-green clusters in the middle. Knowing that is the quickest route to drawing a poinsettia that looks right instead of a red daisy with pointed petals.

• Bracts: the colored, pointed-oval shapes. In a drawn bloom they sit in two or three layers, narrower toward the center, each with a pale midrib.
• True flowers: small clusters of yellow-green buds (cyathia) at the heart, a good place for a pop of mustard.
• Leaves: ordinary green leaves, often with a lobed or pointed outline, and pale veins. They sit below the bracts and create the dark backdrop that makes red glow.
• Stems: straight, slightly woody, often shown with a few leaves jutting out.

Draw the layers, not a single star. Put the biggest bracts at the back, a second ring in front, and a few small bracts nearest the center.

The poinsettia, Euphorbia pulcherrima, is native to Mexico and Central America. In Mexico it is called flor de Nochebuena, the Christmas Eve flower. The name poinsettia comes from Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first U.S. minister to Mexico, who sent plants home to the United States in the 1820s.

That history is worth keeping in mind when you design. A poinsettia print that sits alongside Mexican Christmas traditions has a natural place there; see Mexican Navidad pattern ideas for that context. It is not just a generic red flower.

• Bract red `#C21F2E`, shadow `#8E1522`, highlight `#E0453F`
• Leaf green `#2D5A3B`, vein `#7AA27F`
• Flower center `#E8B93A`
• White bract `#F6F1E6`, shadow `#D8D2C0`
• Ground options: cream `#F7F1E3`, deep green `#10261D`, or soft blush `#F3DDD6`

Other cultivar colors give you more range: creamy white for winter weddings, pink and peach for softer holiday prints, and burgundy for richer, moodier work.

For painterly work, watercolor floral patterns covers what makes the look work and how to create it digitally. For graphic, think of a flat star of eight to ten bracts with simple vein lines and a ring of yellow dots in the center.

1. 1Hero bloom. One large bloom of 5 to 6 inches, with a few small leaves, on a 24 inch tile. Space them in a half-drop so the reds don't line up into diagonals.
2. 2Ditsy poinsettias. Blooms of about 1 inch scattered on a 6 inch tile with tiny leaves. This works for fabric, sleepwear and wrapping.
3. 3Poinsettia border. A repeating row of blooms and leaves along one edge, with a plain field above. Useful for napkins, tablecloths and cards.
4. 4Tropical Christmas. Poinsettias with palm leaves, hibiscus and string lights, in warmer, brighter color, for markets where Christmas arrives with sunshine. See tropical pattern design.
5. 5Tonal wedding. White and cream bracts on a silvery ground, as in floral patterns for winter celebrations.

• Rounded petals with a dark center, which gives you a daisy
• A single flat red with no light and shadow
• Leaves that are bright, saturated green, which flattens the red
• No stems, so blooms hover in the air
• Putting poinsettias, holly and ivy all at the same value, so nothing leads

If you are pairing the flower with greenery, holly and mistletoe covers the accuracy details for those plants, and red patterns is a helpful reference for managing a mostly red design.

In Pattern Weaver, "Describe It" lets you write the specifics in your own words, such as "poinsettia blooms with layered pointed bracts, yellow-green centers and dark leaves, gouache style, cream ground." Each seamless tile takes about 20 seconds, so you can compare a painterly version with a graphic one. Restyle changes the finish if the layout is right but the look isn't. New accounts get 5 free credits.