Practice · Africa
South Africa
How to draw the flag of South Africa
The flag of South Africa carries a green horizontal Y on its side, outlined in white towards the fly and in yellow towards the hoist, separating a red band above from a blue band below, with a black triangle at the hoist.
Colours used
- red —
#e03c31 - white —
#ffffff - dark green —
#007a4d - navy blue —
#002395 - yellow —
#ffb612 - black —
#000000
You do not need to match these hex values exactly. Scoring allows a generous margin on shade because nobody remembers the precise navy of a flag; what it does not forgive is putting the right colour in the wrong place.
How to draw it well
The bands are deliberately unequal, so measuring matters more than usual. Mark the divisions before you fill anything; a flag drawn with equal bands reads as a different flag entirely and scores accordingly.
The triangle at the hoist should reach roughly to the middle of the flag. Draw it early: it defines where the horizontal bands get cut off, and adding it last usually means painting over work you already did.
- Fill the whole canvas with the background or the first stripe — an unpainted margin costs you points.
- Lay in the remaining bands with the rectangle tool, keeping the divisions level.
- Add the central detail last, checking its size against the height of the flag.
- Press Check my flag to see your drawing next to the real one.
Where people lose points on this flag
- Leaving a white margin around the edge of the canvas. Unpainted area is scored as wrong colour, so fill right to the borders.
Proportions
South Africa flies its flag at 3:2. The drawing canvas is a fixed shape and scoring compares regions rather than absolute measurements, so you do not need to reproduce the ratio exactly; what matters is that the internal divisions land in the right relative places.