How to Draw a Sphere in 5 Steps

Learn to Draw a Sphere for Beginners

Learning how to draw a sphere is one of the most important skills for beginner artists. Spheres are used to draw things like eyeballs, planets, potion bottles, UFOs, and most cartoon characters. This beginner-friendly tutorial will show you how to draw and shade a simple 3D sphere in 5 easy steps.

The sphere drawing for people who don’t wanna read the whole thing:

Step 1: Draw a Circle

The first step to drawing a sphere is to draw a circle. Getting the circle perfect isn’t necessary unless you’re a perfectionist.

Step 2: Scratch up the Circle

This step isn’t 100% necessary, but adding little scratches and dots helps give the sphere more texture and visual interest. I just randomly draw some lines and dots on the circle to make it look a little weathered.

Step 3: Do the Flat Colors

No bonus step today. When you are learning how to draw a sphere, you need to know how to color, shade, and highlight. So I’m going to walk you through it. So pick a color and fill in the circle. I went with green (my fav color).

Step 4: Shade the 3D Sphere

The first thing you gotta do when you shade anything is pick the light source. Our light is coming from the top left of the page. With that in mind, I color the bottom right of the circle with a darker green in the shape of a crescent moon. Then I add a simple oval-shaped shadow underneath the sphere to help it feel grounded and 3D.

Step 5: Highlight the Sphere

Highlighting is what makes a sphere look 3D, and it’s pretty easy. Draw a white circle on the top left side of the sphere.

Then, you’re finished…

Good job!!

If you actually read this, that’s cool! If you only looked at the pictures, that’s cool too. I appreciate your time either way.

If you want some other fundamental drawing tutorials, check out How to Draw a Cube or How to Draw a Cone.

Or if you’re ready to put your sphere drawing skills to the test try drawing an eyeball, planet, potion bottle, or maybe a UFO.

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