How to Draw Fruit

Fruit is a perfect subject to help you learn how to draw objects and to practice contour drawing and shading to make items look three-dimensional. Once you can perfect drawing realistic fruit, you can move on to harder subjects like faces and machinery.

Things You'll Need

• Fruit (banana, apple, orange, pear)
• Drawing paper
• Art pencils HB, B, 2B, 4B

Instructions

1. 

   Draw the outline of the fruit. Allow your eyes to follow the outline. Transfer that shape to your paper. You will end up with a cartoonish drawing of the fruit.

2. 

   Draw lines to show the curves of the fruit. Make lines crosswise to indicate how the fruit curves.

3. 

   Begin shading using your art pencils. Start with the darkest area of the drawing. This may not necessarily be on the fruit but outside of the fruit where the shadow hits. Gradually lighten your shading where the shadows on the item are lighter. Where there is no shadow, leave that area white.

4. 

   Build up the form of the fruit by continuing to build up the shading. Shade your drawing using short lines following the direction of the curved lines you have previously drawn.

5. 

   Finish the drawing by using your dark pencils to darken areas of your drawing and using your eraser to lighten the highlighted area. Also use your fingers to smudge the shading to blend it in better. Draw in any markings on your fruit that you observe on the object. Use creative license and leave some of these markings off or add more if you wish.

Tips & Warnings

• Use softer pencils for dark shading, and use hard lead pencils for light shading.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish