How to draw a cube: A creative and comprehensive look, 2024

How to draw a cube with CecelyV

Welcome to how to draw a cube!

Happy drawing, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well and ready to learn how to draw a cube with me today ? .

Cubes are one of the five basic forms. Drawing cubes freehand and in perspective are important skills to build on your art journey. Every form you need, for anything you want to draw, can be carved out of or built from a cube.

I’ll be demonstrating a few different methods for cube drawing here with step-by-step images and videos. I’ll show you how to draw a cube freehand, as well as cube drawing in perspective.

Learning how to draw a cube is simple and straightforward. It gets challenging when you need to turn them in perspective, but that’s a bridge to cross later ?. For now, let’s take a look at what cubes are.

Let’s learn about cubes!

The most helpful description I found of a cube comes from a website search on Kiddle:

“A cube is a block with all right angles and whose height, width and depth are all the same. A cube is one of the simplest mathematical shapes in space.”

https://kids.kiddle.co/Cube

The main thing to understand is that a cube is a three-dimensional shape, meaning it has Volume. While a square has width and height, it has no depth–no volume. A cube, and all other three-dimensional forms, have width, height, and depth.

The sides of a cube (also called faces) are squares. Each side is connected to the others by straight lines (called edges) and by corners (called vertices). Each of a cube’s corners is at a right angle. A cube has 6 faces, 12 edges, and 8 corners.

If you’re interested in a more mathematical explanation of what a cube is, you can find it here.

You might have heard people refer to all kinds of boxes as 3D cubes, especially when they’re talking about drawing in perspective. Technically, not all boxes are cubes, but for drawing purposes, it really doesn’t matter one way or the other ?.

Exploration and study: Natural and man-made cubes

Interestingly, there aren’t a lot of examples of naturally occurring cubes. Since it’s such a basic visual building block, I thought that was a little surprising, but ??‍♀️. Naturally occurring cubes are found primarily in rock, mineral, and crystal formations, and it’s super easy to find examples of man-made cubes in almost anything.

Here are a couple of reference boards I created to illustrate both natural and man-made cubes.

Shape breakouts and natural variations

Normally, I would make a bunch of exploration and study sketches of my subject and break out all the different shape and form variations. But…cubes are pretty simple, so that’s not really a thing for this drawing tutorial ?.

The shapes on a cube are just squares, and the variation is limited: we’re either drawing a cube or a rectangular “cube” (box). When we learn how to draw a cube, those are our base options. But simple is good, right?

Okay, let’s dig into this how to draw a cube business. I’ll go over a few freehand methods I came up with, and I’ve included a few video demonstrations about drawing cubes/boxes in perspective and showing the drawing process for the methods.

How to draw a cube step-by-step tutorials

I made up names for the freehand cube drawing methods I came up with ?:

  • The basic method
  • Upside-down L’s
  • The Headless stick figure
  • Connect the squares method

The basic method

This way of drawing a cube is one that I learned early on in my art journey. It begins with a simple square shape and builds into a cube by adding depth with additional lines.

how to draw a cube_basic method step 1

The basic method, Step One

For the basic method of how to draw a cube, step 1 is drawing a simple square of any size you’d like.

Step Two

Next, start creating depth by drawing lines out from each corner. This begins to give you the edges of the cube.

(I missed the bottom left corner here, but I’m sure you’ll rock it ?).

how to draw a cube_basic method step 2
how to draw a cube_basic method step 3

Step Three

Begin connecting the edges of the cube you drew in the previous step. The goal here is to create each square face of the cube, so each complete connection should give you a square face.

Step Four

Connect the last edges and vertices, and you will have completed your 3D cube.

how to draw a cube_basic method step 4

Upside-down L’s

This is just a spin on the basic method that allows us to shift our thinking a little bit. Instead of starting with a familiar shape, we begin with an upside-down letter ‘L’. This way we start out thinking in terms of edges and vertices rather than shapes and faces.

how to draw a cube_upside-down L's step 1

Upside-down L’s, Step One

As its name suggests, step 1 is drawing two upside-down capital L’s. Their size and how far you space them apart will determine how your cube looks.

Step Two

Connect the two L’s to complete the first face of your cube.

how to draw a cube_upside-down L's step 2
how to draw a cube_upside-down L's step 3

Step Three

From the two bottom vertices of the square face, draw edges back in space that each run parallel to the tops of the original upside-down L’s, as shown.

Step Four

Begin connecting the ends of each of the edges you added in the previous step to create additional faces for your cube.

In this example, the bottom and left faces were created.

how to draw a cube_upside-down L's step 4
how to draw a cube_upside-down L's step 5

Step Five

Finish connecting the last three vertices to create the last three faces of your cube and voila! You now have a completed freehand cube!

The Headless stick figure

This how to draw a cube method is straightforward like the others. We begin with the back corners of the cube and work our way forward in space until the cube is complete, and starting with a headless stick figure gives us that back corner start as you’ll see in this next demo.

how to draw a cube_headless stick figure step 1

Headless stick figure, Step One

We have five edges and two vertices. If we were to add a circle at the top, we’d have a stick figure. Without the head, we get the back corner of our cube.

Step Two

Connect the “arms” and “legs” of our headless stick figure to get the first two planes of our cube, as seen here.

how to draw a cube_headless stick figure step 2
how to draw a cube_headless stick figure step 3

Step Three

Connect the top two outside corners with straight edges to create the top plane of the cube.

Step Four

Drop an edge down from the front-most corner of the top square plane. This sets us up to complete the last three planes of the cube.

how to draw a cube_headless stick figure step 4
how to draw a cube_headless stick figure step 5

Step Five

Connect the two bottom outside corners to the end of the vertical edge you dropped earlier and boom! You have a completed cube ?.

Connect the squares method

The focus of this how to draw a cube method is connecting corresponding points (vertices) of the squares. This way of drawing cubes is a lot of fun and opens up possibilities for more interesting cubes and boxes.

how to draw a cube_connect squares method step 01

Connect the squares, Step One

Drawn any size square you’d like to begin.

Step Two

Draw a second square with roughly the same dimensions as the first, and consider its position in relation to your first square since you’ll be connecting them.

Here I chose to overlap them slightly to make the connection a little more intuitive.

You’ll notice my second square is a little smaller than my first, and that’s okay. The point is to understand and practice the process.

how to draw a cube_connect squares method step 02
how to draw a cube_connect squares method step 03

Step Three

Choose a square corner to start with and connect it to its matching corner on your second square with a straight line (edge).

Step Four

Continue connecting the matching edges of both squares to each other.

how to draw a cube_connect squares method step 04
how to draw a cube_connect squares method step 05

Step Five

After connecting the last corner, you’ll have a completed freehand cube drawing!

How to draw a cube medley!

To make this how to draw a cube tutorial more clear, I created a couple of videos to demonstrate the process for each method shown above. Establishing our processes in our work is extremely important, and my goal is to make the processes I use as clear as possible to help you decide on your own.

How to draw a cube: 3D cube drawing.
Cube drawing by connecting squares.

How to draw a cube in Perspective

Perspective can get a little hairy and confusing when you try to explain it with words and images alone, so I think the best approach for this particular art fundamental is a video demonstration.

To be clear, I didn’t make this video to explain drawing in perspective point by point, but the setup and process stay the same whenever you’re drawing basic forms in perspective.

How to draw a cube: 3D cubes in perspective.

You may have noticed from the video that I did the entire demo on a 3-point perspective grid–meaning a three vanishing point setup. For practice like this, it doesn’t matter which perspective you use so long as you have each vanishing point you need. I find it helpful to work from a 3-point perspective grid even when I’m not drawing in that perspective because it gives me the option of drawing in three different perspectives without having to change my paper format.

As long as you use the appropriate vanishing point, or points, for the perspective you intend to use on your object/form, then you’re good to go! ??

How to draw a cube: Form dissection

Normally, at this point, I would go over how to draw a cube with a dissection demonstration that dives into interior forms. However, with basic cubes and boxes, which aren’t representing anything specifically, there aren’t any interior forms to explore.

Still, a demonstration on cutting into/cutting away/dissecting the cube form is still helpful and useful, so that’s what this next video shows.

How to draw a cube: 3D cube dissection.

More cube drawing – building other forms

As I mentioned earlier, all manner of forms can be built from or carved out of cubes and boxes. Here are a few simple examples to demonstrate what I mean:

Freehand forms from cubes.

How to light a cube

Rather than get into an entire discussion on the fundamentals of light, I decided to show a few photographic examples of lighting on a cube. With a few simple art supplies and wooden 3D shapes, I photographed some images to use as a visual tutorial for how light falls on a cube.

This first set of images were taken in my make-shift still life box. It’s an old diaper box whose inside I’ve covered with black butcher paper. I cut out a couple of holes on each of the short sides and partially cut away the top so I can control the lighting. The cube in these images was lit with white light from a spotlight.

These next set of images demonstrate the light on a cube from my overhead studio light. It’s a small ceiling fan with a light kit, which essentially functions as a large diffused light source for these examples. Once again, you’ll notice that the shadow gets longer as the cube moves further away from the light–however, the shadows (shading) are different with a different light source. There are multiple shadows because the light source is composed of 3 light bulbs.

This gives us multiple shadows that are also brighter and quite soft.

In this last set of lighting/shading reference images for how to draw a cube, I used a candle–a much smaller, but quite bright, light source–to light the wooden cube. A candle would be a point light source, and it makes for much darker and more crisp shadows.

For some of these, the candle (point light) was low and closer to the cube, while at other times it was positioned above the cube. As usual, the closer the cube is to the light source, the sharper and darker the shadows are.

Here are a couple of examples of how to light a cube and place the cast shadows using a traditional medium, graphite pencils.

How to draw a cube from Imagination!

Let’s practice how to draw a cube from imagination ?.

There isn’t really much to explain or guide you through here. Just grab a pencil and some paper, and let your imagination fly! I chose to draw some everyday objects to keep things simple and clear, but the sky is the limit with cubes. Go for it!

How to draw a cube from imagination – demo.

Happy cube drawing!

Well, that’s everything I have on how to draw a cube for now.

Thank you so much for hanging in there with me! It’s my goal to write for beginners, students, experienced artists, and hobbyists alike on this walk of art life, so I hope you found the content of my cube drawing tutorial helpful.

I truly appreciate the opportunity to be a guide and participant in your artistic journey, and I hope I’ve helped you make your cube drawing pop! I know you have a lot of options when you search the web, so thank you for spending some time on my little side line of the internet ❤. I hope you enjoy your cube drawing!

I’d love to hear from you, so if you have any feedback or questions for me, please leave them in the comments section below!

Take care, stay safe, and happy drawing!


More how-to-draw articles on CecelyV.com:

How to draw a circle

How to draw a sphere

How to draw a mushroom

How to draw a banana

How to draw a pumpkin

How to draw a sphere: A flexible approach to a valuable form, 2024

How to draw a sphere

Welcome to how to draw a sphere!

Hello and welcome fellow artists!

Thank you for visiting this article on my site to learn how to draw a sphere!

I’ll go step-by-step through a few methods for sphere drawing, and most of them focus on drawing spheres not lighting spheres. There’s a distinct difference between drawing forms and adding light and shadow to them.

Drawing solid forms should always come first, then light source, shadows, highlights, etc can come into your picture plane. The goal is to have a solid drawing first, with form space you understand. This makes adding light and shadow so much easier.

I don’t shoot for perfect spheres in all of my examples because there are lots of sphere-like or ovoid forms whose drawing process is nearly identical to spheres. These sphere-like forms are basically variations of a sphere, and it helps to know how to construct those as well.

Let’s dig in! We’ll start by looking at what defines a sphere.

Learning about spheres: The technical stuff and gubbins

Don’t worry, I won’t get too mathematical on you, I promise.

Just as every point on a circle is equidistant from its center, so it is with a sphere. The major difference is a sphere is a three-dimensional form, while a circle is a two-dimensional shape. Shapes, edges, and vertices, and depth create forms, which we also call objects.

So, a sphere is a geometric three-dimensional form whose surface is composed of points that are all equidistant from its center. In general, we use the terms sphere and ball interchangeably, and that’s fine.

Exploration and study: Natural and man-made spheres

We need reference photo materials! We all know what a ball, sphere, sphere-like, and ovoid forms look like, so the value of a reference photo here isn’t really for learning how to draw a sphere. Its value is as a source of inspiration. After learning how to draw a sphere, we’ll want to add surface texture and light–which is where the reference photos come in handy.

Shape breakouts and natural variations

Most objects we see in day-to-day life are spherical or spheroid. That means things like apples, oranges, grapes, water droplets, the human skull, etc are three-dimensional forms that are round, or more or less round. They are not perfect spheres, but they’re visually close enough to be referred to as spheres or spherical.

Here’s a reference board for spherical/spheroid and ovoid objects:

How to draw a sphere step-by-step tutorials

There are three methods I’ll cover here that are strictly drawing only–meaning no tonal value, or light and shade, is used to create the spheres. The first two methods demonstrate how to draw freehand spheres, while the third covers sphere drawing in perspective.

The fourth method I’ll cover here goes step-by-step through how to draw a sphere using light and shadow, both digitally and using graphite. I will demonstrate how to add a light source, form shadow, mid-tone (or half tone), a core shadow, a cast shadow, and a highlight to a flat circle shape to model a sphere. I’ll also demonstrate cast shadow placement using the angle of the light rays from the light source.

In this first method, we’ll draw a sphere by using ellipses to add the illusion of depth to a flat circle shape.

how to draw a sphere_depth with ellipses method 01

Step One

Draw a circle of any size you like, and try to make it as round as you can.

Step Two

Draw horizontal ellipses within your circle. The band of each ellipse should look and feel like it’s wrapping around the surface of the sphere you’re creating.

This feeling of a contour line wrapping around a form is what ultimately gives our sphere drawing a sense of three-dimensional depth on our picture plane (paper).

how to draw a sphere_depth with ellipses method 02
how to draw a sphere_depth with ellipses method 03

Step Three

Next, repeat the same process from step 2 with vertical ellipses wrapping around the sphere from top to bottom.

Quick Tip!

The way your ellipses wrap around the edges, or outline, of the circle you started with, is very important.

The illusion of depth is created by giving the viewer the feeling the contour lines are wrapping around the form. This creates a sense of depth because it shows plane changes/turns on the form.

2D forms have no depth, so they have no plane changes to indicate a presence in 3D space. Plane changes are the realm of three dimensions.

how to draw a sphere_depth with ellipses method 04
how to draw a sphere_depth with ellipses method 05

Step Four

Once you’re happy with the sense of depth created by your ellipses, begin darkening the contour lines on the front-facing side of your sphere.

Darkening the contours on the front side, while leaving those in the back lighter, will add a greater sense of depth through value. Darker tones appear to come forward, while lighter tones appear to recede into the background.

To make this process as clear as possible, I created a video to demo the sphere drawing process for this method.

Another method for how to draw a sphere more or less does away with using a circle shape as a starting guide. I don’t find this next method as intuitive or helpful as the method above, but it is another option to consider. It begins with ellipses instead of a circle.

How to draw a sphere: Form dissection

I created the next few videos to demonstrate the form dissection part of how to draw a sphere. When we need to draw something broken, split open, cut up, etc., visual dissection drawing skills come in handy. It’s also useful for investigating and drawing internal shapes and forms, like the juicy insides of a sliced orange or the bloody bits of a battle wound or a sliced-off limb.

The most important thing to remember about the dissection of any form is to do it along believable contour lines, even if you’re not going for a clean look.

Getting a crescent shape from spheres.

Sphere drawing in Perspective

If you’ve visited any of my other how-to-draw articles, first of all, Thank you!

Second, you will have noticed that part of the way I craft these lessons is to demonstrate how to draw the subject in perspective. Perspective drawing is one of the fundamental drawing skills, so I give it a shout-out in each of these articles.

Next, I’ve created a video to demonstrate how some of the process for how to draw a sphere in perspective. As you’ll see in the video, the process is simple but requires quite a bit of repetition.

Below are some images from the video to act as another reference for how to draw a sphere in perspective.

How to draw a sphere with Light and shadow

The first thing to know about how to draw a sphere with light and shadow is that there isn’t a lot of drawing involved, per se.

I consider drawing to be the use of line marks and segments, shapes, forms, etc., which is a bit different than adding value/tones through shading. I think of light and shadow more like painting and coloring, which is why I’m not terribly fond of covering them in how to draw articles. I’m always concerned that it will cause confusion, but it is all connected so we gotta get into it at least a little.

Please try to bear in mind, for how to draw a sphere and anything else you draw, that you always want a solid drawing with solid forms first. Light and shadow, tones and shade, and color and paint all come after you have solid forms.

Okay, I promise I’m done ranting about it. For now ?.

Know your light source

When you’re comfortable with how to draw a sphere, the next step is to add a light source to create light, shade, shadows, and the other values and tones.

First things first, you must know a few things about your light source.

Without diving into the Fundamentals of Light, the four things you must know (or invent and decide on) about your light source are its angle in relation to your object, its height, its color/temperature, and its intensity.

To help you practice, I recommend keeping it simple so there are fewer variables to juggle. I suggest sticking to black and white for now and using a simple light of average intensity. That leaves the height and angle of your light source to play and experiment with.

Here are a few references to help with visualizing your light source.

Form shadow and cast shadows

When lit, all forms will have at least three shadows: a form shadow, a cast shadow, and an occlusion shadow. Of course, in reality, the tones/values are much more involved than that.

Here are a few diagrams to illustrate most, if not all, of the areas and terminology involved in how to draw a sphere with light and shadow.

Lighting your sphere drawing step-by-step (digital)

Now that we’ve very roughly covered a few lighting basics, let’s dive into some demonstration. From experience, I believe the fundamentals of light are more easily practiced with digital tools–they’re much more forgiving. So, this example has been created in Photoshop.

Basic Light and Shadow Demo 01-plain circle

Step One

Start with a medium-size flat circle. It helps to use one with some tone rather than a white circle. Here I’ve used a mid-tone gray circle.

In the case of how to draw a sphere with light and shadow, we need to start with a toned flat circle and build the depth with light and shade. Normally, I would not start lighting without a form.

Step Two

We have a shape to add depth to, now it’s time to decide on the light source.

I chose to emulate the sun here, keeping the source up high, at about a 45-degree angle to the object, far away, and intense.

Basic Light and Shadow Demo 02-add light source and light guide
Basic Light and Shadow Demo 03-add center light

Step Three

With the light source set, let’s make the first rough light pass on the object.

The focus here is on determining where your sphere’s terminus/terminator will be by judging where the plane change happens–where the sphere would begin to turn away from the light.

Step Four

Now it’s time to get into the shade and shading part.

Light helps us see forms, while shade and shadow give us form definition.

In this step, select a dark grey (about 80-85%, or a 2b pencil to 4b pencil if you’re working traditionally) and begin blocking in the form shadow.

The form shadow will begin at the terminus/terminator and cover all parts of the form facing away from the light.

Basic Light and Shadow Demo 04-add form shadow-terminus-core shadow

This is also a good time to start blending in your halftone/mid-tone. The halftone/mid-tone area is where the form has started to turn away from the light but hasn’t turned enough to be in shadow. So, this area is roughly half the value of both the center light and form shadow combined.

It helps to remember these are all first passes. It will be necessary to go back over each area to darken, lighten, blend, and adjust as needed.

Basic Light and Shadow Demo 05-add cast shadow-occlusion shadow

Step Five

With your form shadow roughed in, it’s time to add your cast shadow.

The shape and angle of your cast shadow are determined by the shape of your form and the angle of your light source.

It’s okay you’re a little off at first. I’m pretty sure my example here is slightly off, but it works.

A written explanation gets confusing, so I’ll include a diagram for placing cast shadows after this step-by-step tutorial.

Learning how to draw a sphere with light and shadow is a really good exercise for learning about the other important shadows, like the core and occlusion shadows.

You’ll see in the diagrams from steps four and five that I’ve labeled the core shadow. The terminus/terminator is where the light no longer reaches and the form shadow begins. Right next to that is the core shadow, the darkest part of the form shadow.

Occlusion shadow areas are places where the light cannot reach at all–they are occluded, obstructed. Occlusion shadows can be present on or inside of forms as well as part of cast shadows. Wherever the light does not reach, you should have occlusion level darkness of tone/value.

Step 6

The last step in how to draw a sphere with light and shadow is to add the reflected or “bounce” light.

Reflected light happens when light from the source bounces off other surfaces and is reflected back onto the object–in this case on its form shadow area.

Basic Light and Shadow Demo 06-add highlight-reflected light

How to determine cast shadow placement

Next, I’ve included a few images to demonstrate how to locate and place the cast shadow for a sphere. Here we’re looking for where the light rays meet the outer contours of the sphere and intersect the ground plane.

How to draw a sphere with light and shadow using pencils (traditional)

Not everyone is interested in working digitally, so I thought it would be helpful to demonstrate how to draw a sphere with light and shadow traditionally as well.

If you’d like to follow along with this demonstration, you’ll need a few pencils. I recommend a blend of the soft and hard leads: 4h, 2h, and h pencils; as well as an hb pencil and a 2b pencil. 4b and 6b pencils will help in the shadow areas. I like to go all the way up to 8b because I love velvety shadows, but usually, 6b is dark enough. I have articles about graphite pencils and drawing tools if you need more information in those areas.

As a rule, I don’t use a blending stump, cotton swab, or cotton ball for this kind of exercise. They smudge more than they blend, so I avoid them.

How to draw a sphere from Imagination!

Here is where those lovely references from the beginning of this article come in handy! While important, sphere drawing on its own isn’t the most exciting exercise. With some imagination and reference, you can create some fun and awesome things from spheres.

How to draw a Sphere, signing off!

Well, this one was quite a few mouthfuls, wasn’t it?

Thank you so much for reading how to draw a sphere and spending some time with me here. I appreciate you hanging in there and I hope you found this helpful and valuable to your artist journey.

I’m always trying to improve and come up with more useful articles to write, so if you have any feedback or questions for me, please reach out to me in the comments below.

Take care, stay safe, and happy drawing!


More how-to-draw articles on CecelyV.com:

How to draw a circle

How to draw a cube

How to draw a mushroom

How to draw a banana

How to draw a pumpkin