“How to Draw a Apple in 6 Easy Steps”
“Learn how to draw a apple with easy step-by-step instructions, helpful tips, and beginner-friendly techniques for great results.”
I can still picture the first apple I ever tried to draw. It was more like a sad, flattened balloon, resigned to the inevitable.
My stem was lopsided, my leaf resembled a miniature, green bungee jump, and my apple sat at a slight angle, as if it was trying to make a break for the edge of the page.
A young nine-year old me, sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table with a tiny, stubby pencil in hand, fully believed that “real artists” were born with this kind of knowledge already.
Spoiler: they are not. We never started out knowing.
And here, twenty years and a few hundred halved apples later, drawing really just for the pleasure of it, for art lessons, because I was tired and I felt like drawing, I can tell you that this is not what people call talent. This is the correct order of the correct steps. That’s all. That’s all.
So if you arrived here by googling ‘how to draw an apple’ at 11pm because you were helping a kid with their homework or just really want to sketch something without feeling pressured, you are in the right place. Ready to do this? We will take it step-by-step.
Before we get to the steps, I want to take a moment to tell you why apples are the entry drug of drawing. Apples are really seductively simple looking.
An apple is a circle with a small dimple at the top, a little narrowing near the bottom, as if the apple were a rounded hearts that took the easy street and tried to get a little chic.
Just imagine it this way: if drawing were a computer game, the apple would be the first level. It prepares you for proportion, symmetry and simple shading—all of which you will not have to worry about when adding a human face or galloping horse to your repertoire.
And once you’ve mastered an apple, it’s a hop skip and jump to pears, peaches and a dozen other rounded shapes in the fruit aisle.
Nothing fancy here, I promise. You probably already have everything within arm’s reach:
A pencil (any ordinary No. 2 will be fine, although I like to be a bit fancier than that and use a soft 2B for shading) A rubber: because you’ll make mistakes, they’re nothing to do with the process!
Paper, all sorts of Optional: color pencils, markers or paints if you want to add color at the end I used to believe you needed an expensive sketchbook and a full set of Prismacolor pencils to produce any good work.
That’s B.S. I have some fantastic apple sketches that I did on the back of a grocery store receipt in between coffee cups.
1. Begin with a Circle (though not quite perfect!)
Start off by drawing a rough circle with a light hand in the center of your page. And here’s the part that novice artists are never told: it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Apples are hardly ever completely round, they’re a little lopsided, a little squeezed, as if they’ve been softly embraced. Get used to the wobble.
If a circle is giving you a hard time, here’s a little trick I learned from a teaching artist many years ago: place four dots on the canvas—one at the top bottom left and right of where you’d like your circle to be—and use them as guides for following curves.
This is like give-your-grown-up-self-a-head-start connect-the-dots and it feels a little brilliant.
2. Expand the Signature Dent at the top.
This is the difference between “circle” and “apple” and I must say, this is by far my favorite aspect of the entire process.
Just at the tip of your circle, make a small gently rounded dent that is more like a shallow “W” or gentle bend, similar to the top of a heart shape but less pronounced.
This little scar is carrying a large portion of the load. Without it, you merely have a pin drawn. With it, your mind effectively reads “apple” straight away. It’s an elegant modification that pays off massively, much like one good joke can salvage an entire awkward dinner party.
Secondly, starting from the middle of that dent draw a little, gently curved line. Ending in the air off to one side. The stems on real apple is not straight, they bend in a slight angle about the way they are bending is as if they have just woken up from a long nap.
Use fine lines either same thickness or slightly thick at the root of the apple and thinner as it goes up. I always warn people about the stem: I tell people to think of it as a little branch rather than a lazy stick. That small bend makes the drawing come alive.
Next, right to the left of the stem, draw a very basic shape of a leaf. It should look like an oval with points sticking out of the ends. Draw a single curved line in the middle of the leaf for the vein. If you want to get fancy, add in one or two small branches to the middle vein.
Here’s a nice analogy that has stayed with me: think of the leaf as a small flag/tape that is planted somewhere along the length of the stem—like a bridge poster. There is no need for it to be complicated.
Something simple and clear—the shape of the leaf—is just as legible from a distance.
Now come back to your drawing and neaten it up. Remove any extra guideline dots or stray intersections, and darken the lines you want to remain. This is the point at which your wobbly
Circle officially graduated into the, “apple” zone. Be patient, don’t rush this stage.
I understand the temptation to call it quits once the general shape is formed, but that is exactly where you’re wrong—and I think where students usually rush to a finish line. Refining is where your drawing begins to take shape, much as the first draft of an essay needs editing and revising before it is ready to present.
Right here is where the apple begins to transition from a flattish form to one with real three dimensionality, and it’s the most satisfying bit in my opinion. Somewhere in your mind choose a light source, which will be coming from the upper left.
Keep this region relatively light and near unmarked and increase your pressure as you head to the right and bottom edges.
Put a dinky unshaded circle or oval in, in the area where the major highlight would be. This one simple technique tricks the eye into thinking of the shape as a gleaming matte surface rather than a flat, natural surface.
Think of this as the corresponding technique to complimenting someone’s haircut; it’s a little detail with a huge impact.
Once you’ve got the basic apple down, you can start playing with style:
Cartoon apple: make it look more rounded than the real thing, with a smiley mouth and eyes made up of two dots if you’ve got a silly side. Realistic apple (see above). Here a good step towards adding realism to the apple would be to emphasize the subtleties of the shading and texture and possibly add a small blemish or two.
Half apple or cross-section: including drawing the core, removing the seeds, and drawing the inner flesh to increase the difficulty one time I spent an entire weekend drawing nothing but apples in all sorts of kinds of representations cartoony realistic, watercolor-style, just to see how much I could extract from a simple shape.
It was an unexpectedly calming activity, like doodling guitar strings.
Drawing an apple feels like something so minute I can hardly believe even this entire guide should be devoted to it. But the very first time I drew a successful apple it revealed a significant truth to me: complicated drawings are merely the accumulation of simple moves. Circle. Dent. Stem. Leaf.
Shading. Five simple movements. That is all it takes to look at an apple and find a drawing. Now take that pen, and give it a go forget about getting it perfect and just draw away. Your first apple could be tilted to one side as well, and to be honest that’s part of what makes it interesting!
Additional Resources:
- How to Draw an Apple Tutorial Step by Step:A well-referenced step-by-step apple tutorial that covers shading with color variation, useful as a supporting technique reference.
- Still Life with Apples and Pears:Museum collection page on Cézanne’s famous apple still lifes, including his quote about wanting to “astonish Paris” with an apple.
