How to Draw a Fleur de Lis

Mardi Gras (literally "Fat Tuesday") was first celebrated in the US in 1703, brought to Louisiana by French colonists. Once a holiday for Catholics to indulge before the penitential season of Lent, Mardi Gras is now beloved by many who have no connections to the religious aspect of the celebration. One of the main symbols of Mardi Gras is the fleur de lis. It only takes a few simple steps to draw a colorful fleur de lis that looks like it's popping up off the page. Affiliate links below. 

Draw a Fleur de Lis

Materials:

• paper
• markers (green, yellow, purple)
• colored pencils (white, medium grey)
• colorless blender

Steps: 

Lightly sketch the basic shape of a fleur de lis on paper, using a regular pencil or the grey colored pencil. There is one center portion, shaped like a pointed spoon, bent spoons on either side of the first spoon pointing left and right, and a oval band connecting them. You can make your spoons more or less pointy or bendy than I did. Use the markers to color the center spoon and the connecting band yellow. The left and right spoons are purple and green. 

With the white color pencil, draw guidelines along each element. You're basically splitting each part in half, plus adding a chicken foot at the bottom of the yellow spoon. Draw your lines lighter than I did; I made my lines dark so you could see them in the photo. 

The next step is to lightly color certain sections of the spoons and oval white: the left of the yellow spoon, the top and left of the purple spoon, the top and right of the green spoon, and the top of the  oval.  

Use a medium grey pencil to shade the remaining sections: the right side of the yellow spoon, between the chicken toes on the yellow spoon, the bottom and right of the purple spoon, the bottom and left of the green spoon, and the bottom of the oval. The pencil in the photo below is too light. I switched to a medium grey and recolored the sections, but forgot to take a photo. 

Use a colorless blender to even out the color. 

Finally, add white highlights as shown. 

After drawing your own fleur de lis, you might enjoy this article about the connection between the fleur de lis and Scouting America. There's some interesting information in the comments as well.