How to Draw a Tennis Racquet

If you are going to become an illustrator, there are many different subjects that you need to get familiar with. Being able to draw sports equipment increases your artistic vocabulary. This allows you to add more shapes and items off the cuff while you are drawing without needing a reference photo. This is particularly important for comic strip illustrators who must improvise as ideas come to them. The shapes in a tennis racket are relatively simple and can be boiled down to a basic frame very easily.

Things You'll Need

• Pencil
• Paper
• Black ink pen
• Eraser

Instructions

1. 

   Draw the racket with a large oval that is pointed diagonally toward the upper-left corner of the page. Add a small, upside-down triangle to the lower right of the racket. Attach a diagonal rectangle to the bottom of the triangle for the handle.

2. 

   Add a smaller oval inside the main oval. Draw a smaller upside-down triangle inside the first to thicken the frame. Draw a diagonal line across the top of the rectangle to show where the handle padding begins.

3. 

   Draw a crisscross pattern across the inside of the racket. Do this by drawing 13 vertical lines intersecting 11 horizontal lines. Add the five diagonal lines to the handle to create the wrapping of the handle tape.

4. 

   Ink the entire illustration of the racket. Add small diagonal lines to the top rim of the oval as well as the bottom half of the racket oval. Let the ink dry and erase all the pencil lines.

Tips & Warnings

• Once you have learned to draw a tennis racket, add it to a figure drawing to show someone using the sports equipment in an illustration.

• Be sure to let the ink dry before you erase the pencil, or the picture will smudge.

Resources

• Cartoon Sports: Article on drawing sports equipment as actual cartoon characters