How to Draw a Cylinder

Learn how to draw a cylinder in this quick and easy video tutorial. This is a beginning pencil drawing lesson to help you understand the basic cylinder shape and how to shade it in.

If you want to learn how to draw, creating basic shapes is a great place to begin. Watch this online class with step-by-step instructions about the easiest way to draw a cylinder.

Drawings of cylinders in pencil, colored pastels. markers and paint — How to Draw a Cylinder

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Materials
Art Lesson
Variations
Tips and tricks
Video of drawing a cylinder
Transcript
Lesson Downloads
For more practice
Frequently Asked Questions
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While it might seem "too simple” learning how to draw basic shapes such as cylinders is fundamental to learning how to draw and paint more complex subjects. Start with a cylinder and work your way up to still life, landscape and even figures.

Keep practicing these drawing skills and you will improve with time. Don’t give up though, even if it might seem intimidating.

Learning how to draw a cylinder can easily translate into many other drawing skills and techniques. Drawing a cylinder is a basic building block that can help you create other things such as trees, arms, legs torsos, furniture and much more.

Of course drawing a cylinder can really be more complex than this video explains. I will cover more about drawing this and other shapes with perspective in a later video.

You can easily start and stop the video to learn basic drawing at your own pace.

Materials

The materials needed for this lesson are very simple, you probably have them on hand already:

Pencil
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)

Art Lesson

*5. Shade in a gradual transition between lights and darks*

Draw the top of the cylinder by drawing an oval.
Draw two lines down from the edge of the oval. One on each side. Use your whole arm without wiggling your wrist to get straighter lines.
Draw in a half oval at the bottom to connect the two lines.
Shade in your cylinder by turning your pencil on the side and pushing on the top of it. This will help you shade a lot of area more quickly.
One side will have more shadows and need darker shading. The other side can be left white. Take your time doing this to get a nice gradual transition between the light and dark shading.
Draw in a shadow below the edge of the lid. Shade in the top of the lid where it is in shadow.
Sketch and then then shade in the shadow that the cylinder is casting.
Lastly, add in a horizon line and some of the folds of fabric that are in the background.

Variations

You can also try coloring in your cylinder with soft pastels, water color paint or colored pencils.

Tips and tricks

Push down harder on your pencil for darker shading and push more gently for lighter shading.

Turn your paper as needed to make it easier.

Drawing cylinder start with a rectangle and add a half circle to the top and bottom — *You can also start with a rectangle and add a half circle to the top and bottom*

Many people like to start by drawing a rectangle then adding a half circle or half oval shape to the top. You can then go back and erase any lines that you don’t need.

How not to draw cylinder with pointy ended arcs which would look like almond shape when looking down from top — *Don't draw pointy ended arcs, this shape would look more like an almond than a cylinder*

Don’t make the mistake of drawing an arc with pointy ends instead of a half circle or half oval. If you imagine looking down at this shape from above it looks something like an almond.

The correct shape when looking down on it from above will be a circle. So make sure that you point the ends of these lines inward or continue drawing the circle or oval.

Video of drawing a cylinder

Draw an easy cylinder and shade it in with pencil

Transcript

Read Transcript

Hi everyone. I’m really excited to be here. So in this lesson we are going to learn how to draw a cylinder. Here’s why we want to learn how to draw a cylinder. It’s just really great practice to learn how to look at an object and learn how to draw it.

For example with his little tuna can we are seeing the darks over here and the light is coming in here and a few highlights on the top. So it works on, we can work on seeing an object and actually drawing what we are seeing.

Cylinders also translate into other objects that we want to learn how to draw too such as trees or legs and arms or furniture. The list is really endless. So go head and draw with me.

I’m going to start by drawing the top of my cylinder. It’s just going to be a big flat oval. Then draw straight lines down from the edge of that.

Use my whole arm to get that straight line as opposed to kind of wiggling my wrist around. And then I can adjust it if I need to straighten it up.

Now the bottom is going to mimic that line right there [on top] also. I’m going to go ahead and draw in the bottom.

This happens to be an oatmeal container that I’m drawing also it has a lid. I’m going to just go ahead and draw that edge of the lid.

So eat your oatmeal and then you can draw it too. It’s a lot of fun and it’s nutritious.

I’m going to turn this on the side and hold my pencil also on the side and push down from the top. That way I can cover a lot of shading all at one time, really quickly.

Just going to shade it in, my darks are on this side [right] and my light is coming in from this side [left]. So I’m going to leave a white strip on that side [left].

I can take my time with this and really get a nice transition from the darks over to the lights.

Then I can go back and even darken up this area that I want darker and again transition out. Shading this side of the lid as well.

That is the basic shading.

Now under the edge of this lid there is a little bit of a shadow. And the rim up here at the top runs around there like that.

Now, because my light is hitting at this direction [from left] I know that the light is going to be hitting also in this area [upper right]. Which means this area [upper left] is going to be in shadow. And then transition that shadow out as well.

Little bit of shadow hitting it right there and a shadow on the rim.

Now I don’t want my cylinder just sitting out here in space, floating around so I’m going to add in a horizon line and maybe just a little hint of a background.

I have some fabric behind it. So just [draw] the folds of that fabric. Just a little bit of quick shading.

This cylinder is also casting a shadow. I’m going to go out like that. It is kind of a nice soft shadow and then just a hint of a shadow where that can is actually meeting the table.

That is it. That’s how to draw a basic cylinder. Thanks. Bye-bye.

Learn how to draw a cylinder in this quick and easy video tutorial. This is a beginning pencil drawing lesson to help you understand the basic cylinder shape and how to shade it in.

Equipment

Pencil
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)

Instructions

Draw the top of the cylinder by drawing an oval.
Draw two lines down from the edge of the oval. One on each side.Use your whole arm without wiggling your wrist to get straighter lines.
Draw in a half oval at the bottom to connect the two lines.
Shade in your cylinder by turning your pencil on the side and pushing on the top of it. This will help you shade a lot of area more quickly.
One side will have more shadows and need darker shading. The other side can be left white. Take your time doing this to get a nice gradual transition between the light and dark shading.
Draw in a shadow below the edge of the lid. Shade in the top of the lid where it is in shadow.
Sketch and then then shade in the shadow that the cylinder is casting.
Lastly, add in a horizon line and some of the folds of fabric that are in the background.

Notes

Push down harder on your pencil for darker shading and push more gently for lighter shading.

Turn your paper for easier shading if needed.

Cylinder drawn in pencil on sketchbook — *Cylinder Drawn in Pencil*

Lesson Downloads

Cylinder Still Life to Draw Download

For more practice

Try drawing your own objects for more practice. Challenge yourself by setting up still life of canisters, cups and soup cans.

Also think about making different types of surfaces appear in distinct ways. Glass, tin, fabric, metal, paper and cardboard all have different qualities and will look different. Try to capture these characteristics.

Try drawing what you actually see, not just what you think you see.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you draw a cylinder?

Draw the top of the cylinder by drawing an oval. Draw two lines down from the edge of the oval. One on each side.Use your whole arm without wiggling your wrist to get straighter lines. Draw in a half oval at the bottom to connect the two lines.

How do you shade in a cylinder?

Shade in your cylinder by turning your pencil on the side and pushing on the top of it. This will help you shade a lot of area more quickly. One side will have more shadows and need darker shading. The other side can be left white. Take your time doing this to get a nice gradual transition between the light and dark shading. Sketch and then then shade in the shadow that the cylinder is casting.

Why should I draw a cylinder?

Learning how to draw basic shapes such as cylinders is fundamental to learning how to draw and paint more complex subjects. Start with a cylinder and work your way up to still life, landscape and even figures. Cylinders are also basic building block that can help you create other things such as trees, arms, legs torsos, furniture and much more.