A collection of moving graduation illustrations that will bring tears to your eyes. Memorable ideas.
Graduation ceremonies are special moments where feelings of gratitude, farewell, and a new beginning all intersect, aren’t they? Many people are surely looking for moving illustrations that can add color to such important scenes.
Hand-drawn graduation illustrations, with a warm touch that can bring tears to your eyes, come in a variety of expressive styles.
In this article, we’ll introduce plenty of illustration ideas that deepen the emotion of graduation.
You’re sure to find ideas that help convey your feelings in graduation albums, group messages, message cards, and more!
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A collection of moving graduation illustrations that will bring tears to your eyes. Unforgettable ideas (31–40)
A student looking up at cherry blossoms
@_nun_02_ Farewell, spring 🌸#Nina77#Illustration#Illustration makingMaking-of video#CherryBlossom#PR
♬ Original song – Nina77 – Nina77
The combination of school uniforms and cherry blossoms makes for a lovely design that evokes graduation.
By focusing on the main character’s expression, you can infuse the illustration with feelings like the loneliness and sadness of graduating, as well as hope and anticipation for the future.
If you adapt the uniform to match a specific school’s design, it’s sure to be a hit! By refining elements like tone and saturation to create a unified look, you can achieve an even better result.
Even if you’ve never drawn an illustration before, please take this opportunity to give it a try.
Report card
@chiko303 Let's go ahead and express our gratitude to the teacher before winter break!CuteIllustration videoTeacherGratitude#thankyou
♬ Gyutto – Sexy Zone
An idea for a memorable report card that lets students express their gratitude to teachers.
Turn the subject fields into spaces for writing feelings, and add episodes of how the teacher supported them to give honest sentiments a tangible form.
Using stars or gold seals in the evaluation section will soothe the heart.
Hand-drawing the borders adds warmth and creates a relaxed, informal feel.
Varying text size for emphasis is also effective.
It’s a heartwarming idea that delivers feelings that can’t be conveyed by words alone, with a touch of playfulness, in a way that lingers in memory.
Calligraphy Art
If you go with “shodo art,” which combines calligraphy and painting, you’re sure to end up with a striking, powerful cover! You can scatter letters throughout the artwork like hidden characters, or place one large, thematic character in the center and build the illustration around it—the design possibilities are endless.
Creating variation with shades of ink works well, but if you’re printing in color, we also recommend using colored ink or paints for a vibrant finish.
A message-rich cover that incorporates calligraphy will leave a vivid impression on graduates, teachers, and parents alike.
A two-shot with my best friend
Some of you may have made friends in your student life whom you can truly call best friends.
How about a graduation illustration that captures the moment of setting off on a new journey with such a friend? This is a great idea for those who are good at drawing people.
In this illustration, the protagonists are me and my best friend—just the two of us.
Try imagining expressions and poses as if we’re having a conversation.
For the background, you could include a memorable place, like the school gate or the rooftop.
Create a piece that feels like you can almost hear the conversation, and it’s sure to make everyone smile!
photo style
Taking photos with a smartphone—now an everyday sight—was unimaginable just a few decades ago, when you couldn’t see the picture immediately after taking it.
Precisely because we print photos less often nowadays, illustrations with a photographic feel might move viewers more deeply.
You could even print photos you actually took with friends and use them as materials.
Try condensing your school-life memories into the motif of a photograph.
If you’re turning it into an illustration, intentionally blurring or cropping the photo can make the element you most want to highlight stand out.
A collection of deeply moving graduation illustrations that bring tears to your eyes. Unforgettable ideas (41–50)
Photographic reproduction of a school building
How about an illustration that copies the school building where you’ve spent your school life? If you use a photo of the building directly as your draft and trace the main lines before drawing, you can finish with minimal distortion of the shape.
It might also be interesting to draw the building’s lines with unique tools like a split chopstick pen or a bamboo pen, or to try using colored inks.
If it ends up looking plain, setting the background as a sunset or a blue sky, or adding patterns with ink bleeding can give it originality and is recommended.
Sports Festival
This idea evokes youthful scenes of sweating it out with school classmates and teammates.
By depicting moments like handing off the relay baton, running at full speed, or friends waving flags in the cheering section, you can preserve iconic memories of school life.
It’s also great to draw illustrations inspired by the class dance everyone performed together or by team sports.
Adding the schoolyard or cheering flags in the background will recreate the energy and excitement of the moment.
Since the sports festival is an event that deepens bonds with friends, it will make for a moving piece well-suited to a graduation theme.