Practice · Europe
United Kingdom
How to draw the flag of United Kingdom
The flag of the United Kingdom overlays three crosses on a navy blue field: the broad white saltire of Scotland, the narrower red saltire of Ireland set off-centre within it, and the red cross of St George on a white border over the top.
Colours used
- navy blue —
#012169 - white —
#ffffff - red —
#c8102e
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.
Flags it gets confused with
United Kingdom belongs to the Union Jack cantons. The canton is identical; the star arrangement in the fly is what you are actually being tested on. The others in this group are Australia and New Zealand.
How to draw it well
The diagonals run corner to corner. Draw them with a thick brush in one stroke each rather than trying to build them from rectangles.
- 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
- Drawing a neighbour by mistake — Australia and New Zealand share this layout.
- Leaving a white margin around the edge of the canvas. Unpainted area is scored as wrong colour, so fill right to the borders.
Proportions
the United Kingdom flies its flag at 2:1 — noticeably wider than the 3:2 most countries use, so leave room. 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.