How to Draw an Easy Pear Fruit Sketch

Learn how to draw an easy pear fruit sketch in this quick drawing lesson. Follow the easy step-by-step tutorial drawing video to learn how to sketch and shade in a pear.

In this art class, learn how to draw a simple and realistic pear. Broken down into simple steps, drawing is simple and fun on this online drawing and art website.

Pencil drawing of a pear on a spiral bound sketchbook next to watercolor painting and colored pencil sketches of pears.

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Materials
Art Lesson
Variations
Tips and tricks
Video (Drawing a Pear)
Transcript
Lesson Downloads
For More Practice
What to do with Your Sketch
Frequently Asked Questions
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Sketching a pear is a simple and beautiful way to practice drawing skills and perfect shading and shaping techniques. Training your eye and had to work together to depict the objects is an important part of learning how to draw well.

Before you attempt to draw an entire still life of fruit and other complex objects it is best to learn how to draw individual pieces of fruit. It is important to understand the shape, the way that light hits it, and how to draw what you actually see.

Practice, practice, practice! Draw your pear over and over until you are comfortable with drawing the basic pear shape, shading in the darker areas, and blending it all together.

Materials

The materials that you need for this lesson include:

Paper (Drawing paper is best but you can use whatever you have available. I am using a 5.5 x 8.5-inch spiral-bound sketchbook with 60lb paper)
Pencil - use a soft pencil for the shading (a 7B, 8B, or 9N will be best, the higher the number the softer the pencil) and a hard pencil for the lines (H is good for this) or just use whatever pencil you have
Eraser - white vinyl or other
Brush - 2-inch chip brush for brushing away eraser dust, optional

Art Lesson

Erase guidelines & remove dust with a brush

Using the hard pencil mark the top and bottom of the pear.
Draw a guide line down the center of the pear if you want.
Sketch in a sphere for the bottom of the pear.
Draw in the top of the pear. Look at the photo or a real pear to get the shape correct. It might not be perfectly symmetrical. This is ok, fruit often is asymmetrical. Your drawing will be more realistic if you include this and other imperfections.
Sketch in the stem.
Lightly draw in the shadow area.
Erase the guidelines that you don't need. Use the brush to sweep away any eraser dust.
Look at the shape of your pear and make any adjustments to the lines or form.
Using the soft drawing pencil shade in the pear. Turn the paper as needed to make it easier.
Shade the entire pear, starting with the darkest areas. Leave the lightest highlight areas white.
Follow the contour of the pear along the sides and bottom.
Leave a small light spot on the left side of the stem near the bottom. Then shade the rest of the stem very dark.
Shade in the oval-shaped depression at the base of the stem very dark. Immediately outside of the depression is a highlight, so leave that area white.
Go over all the shaded areas again making them darker and creating contrast in the drawing.
Shade in the shadow area under the pear with a very light tone.
Use your finger to blend the shaded areas. This will help make nice soft shading over your pear and smooth the transitions between the dark and light areas.
Fine-tune your drawing and shading as needed.
Erase any highlighted areas that need to be a brighter white.

Variations

Add color to your pear drawing by painting it with watercolor paint.

Practice sketching the same pear with a variety of colored pencils.

Add some background behind your pear. You could add walls, a tablecloth, windows etc. Use crosshatching to shade in the background.

Watercolor painting of pears next to brushes and watercolor paint set. — Drawing a pear

Tips and tricks

Make your initial sketch very light so the lines are easy to erase if not needed.

The bottom of the pear is round so you can sketch it in like a sphere.

Work across the entire drawing all at once. Don’t just focus on one small area at a time.

Use the H pencil for the sketch and the softer 7, 8, or 9B pencil for shading.

If you want, use your finger to gently blend the shading.

Video (Drawing a Pear)

Transcript

Read Transcript

Hi everyone. In this art lesson we are going to practice drawing a pear.

So we have two different types of pencils here. We have a 9B pencil which is a really soft pencil and we'll use that to do the shading and an H pencil which is very hard so it will make nice light lines for our guidelines.

So start by marking the top and bottom of the pear. The bottom of the pear is going to be a sphere. The top of the pear is going to come down kind of like that.

Adjust my shape if I need to. There that looks pretty pear-like and the stem comes up at the top, sticks out and then there's a little divot where it meets.

Now the shadow is going to sit down here like this, it's kind of a small light shadow. My lines are very light so they'll be easy to erase.

Let me just go ahead and erase these lines which I don't need. I can adjust my lines as I need them.

A little bit rounder, there.

Okay another tool I really like to use is a little chip brush eraser you can buy these at the hardware store, they're usually pretty inexpensive.

That's it, brush away all that eraser dust without smudging my drawing. I could also blow it off if I didn't want to wipe it off.

All right now, switching to my 9B pencil I'm just going to start shading in those darker areas and I can turn my paper as I need to. I'm going to go over the entire area.

I'm leaving the highlight areas lighter. So we're getting highlights in here, over there and right there in the front as well as, we see two little reflected highlights right there and right there on the bottom.

So that's kind of my first go around the shading. Now the stem at the very left has a very light highlight on the bottom left and the rest of it's really dark and this divot is really dark as well.

And then the edge of it that comes out and it's just a smidge lighter immediately followed by a nice bright highlight so I'm going to try to leave that highlight area white.

Now I'm going to go over all of this area again and make everything a little bit darker. Now I'm going to really work on getting a lot of nice contrast between my lights and darks.

Although it might not seem like it our fruit is often a little bit asymmetrical. Get this shadow area under there, it's a very light shadow.

And probably leave the rest and blend. Now I'm going to use my finger and blend the shading together. This is going to give me a nice soft shadows on the pear.

What is going on there? That's a little bit off. Straighten it up. Okay blend out my shading just like that. If I need to, go back in, refine those areas just a little bit, and blend out with my finger again, just like that.

Then I can go back in with the corner of my eraser and just erase those highlighted areas that I know are going to be really bright white.

And that's how to draw a basic pear.

Thanks for watching I hope to see you next time here at artlooklearn.com

Drawing a Pear

Practice drawing a pear in this quick drawing lesson. Follow the easy step-by-step tutorial drawing video to learn how to sketch and shade in a pear.

Equipment

Paper (Drawing paper is best but you can use whatever you have available. I am using a 5.5 x 8.5 inch spiral bound sketchbook with 60lb paper)
Pencil - use a soft pencil for the shading (a 7B, 8B, or 9N will be best, the higher the number the softer the pencil) and a hard pencil for the lines (H is good for this) or just use whatever pencil you have
Eraser - white vinyl or other
Brush - 2-inch chip brush for brushing away eraser dust, optional

Instructions

Using the hard pencil mark the top and bottom of the pear.
Draw a guide line down the center of the pear if you want.
Sketch in a sphere for the bottom of the pear.
Draw in the top of the pear. Look at the photo or a real pear to get the shape correct. It might not be perfectly symmetrical. This is ok, fruit often is asymmetrical. Your drawing will be more realistic if you include this and other imperfections.
Sketch in the stem.
Lightly draw in the shadow area.
Erase the guidelines that you don't need. Use the brush to sweep away any eraser dust.
Look at the shape of your pear and make any adjustments to the lines or form.
Using the soft drawing pencil shade in the pear. Turn the paper as needed to make it easier.
Shade the entire pear, starting with the darkest areas. Leave the lightest highlight areas white.
Follow the contour of the pear along the sides and bottom.
Leave a small light spot on the left side of the stem near the bottom. Then shade the rest of the stem very dark.
Shade in the oval-shaped depression at the base of the stem very dark. Immediately outside of the depression is a highlight, so leave that area white.
Go over all the shaded areas again making them darker and creating contrast in the drawing.
Shade in the shadow area under the pear with a very light tone.
Use your finger to blend the shaded areas. This will help make nice soft shading over your pear and smooth the transitions between the dark and light areas.
Fine-tune your drawing and shading as needed.
Erase any highlighted areas that need to be a brighter white.

Notes

Make your initial sketch very light so the lines are easy to erase if not needed.

The bottom of the pear is round so you can sketch it in like a sphere.

Work across the entire drawing all at once. Don’t just focus on one small area at a time.

Use the H pencil for the sketch and the softer 7, 8, or 9B pencil for shading.

If you want, use your finger to gently blend the shading.

Lesson Downloads

Pear photo for drawing Download

For More Practice

Colored pencil sketches of pears next to colored pencils.

Draw a pear and use crosshatching to shade it in.
Sketch several pears together. Can you draw them in overlapping positions?
Set up your own still life with pears or other fruit and try drawing what you see.
Try drawing a pear with charcoal, colored pencils or pen and ink.

What to do with Your Sketch

You can also frame your drawing and decorate your home. A hand drawn rose is a stunning addition to any room.

Your sketch would make a lovely homemade gift for Christmas, Hanukkah, birthdays, or any other special occasion. Hand-drawn art makes a wonderful and thoughtful present.

Another idea is to leave it in your sketchbook to create a portfolio of your completed drawings, sketches, and art projects.

Framed pear drawing on a blue-grey wall next to a blue-gray sitting chair and a white pitcher and mug on a small table with plant branches on the sides. — Framed pear drawing for decoration

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you draw a pear?

Mark the top and bottom of the pear. Sketch in a sphere for the bottom of the pear.

Draw in the top of the pear. Look at the photo or a real pear to get the shape correct. Sketch in the stem. Lightly draw in the shadow area.

How do you shade a pear?

Shade the entire pear, starting with the darkest areas. Leave the lightest highlight areas white. Shade the stem and the oval-shaped depression at the base of the stem very dark.

Go over all the shaded areas again making them darker and creating contrast in the drawing. Shade in the shadow area under the pear with a very light tone.

Use your finger to blend the shaded areas. This will help make nice soft shading over your pear and smooth the transitions between the dark and light areas.

How do you draw a pear with colored pencils?

Using the colored pencil color of your choice Mark the top and bottom of the pear. Sketch in a sphere for the bottom of the pear. Draw in the top of the pear. Sketch in the stem.

Shade in the darker areas with a darker colored pencil. Leave the highlights the color of the paper. Overlap different colors to develop more color and volume.