Step by Step 3D Candy Cane Drawing Tutorial
Today we are going to learn how to draw a candy cane using oil pastels on black paper. You’ll also see examples of several candy cane drawing ideas using watercolors, markers, and colored pencils.
This is the perfect drawing for learning how to use oil pastels and blend the colors together. The colors of the oil pastels look so bright and bold on the black paper. And there are many color combinations that can be used. You can use real candy canes as inspiration for your colors.
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Art Supplies
- Black construction paper
- Oil pastels
- Candy cane template
- Thin black marker
- Paper or cardstock
- Markers
- Pencil
- Click Eraser, Pink Pearl Eraser
- White Gelly Roll pen
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Contour Lines In Art
What are contour lines in art? This refers to the outline of a form or object. Contour lines are also the interior structure of an object or form.
When making our candy cane drawings, we will use interior contour lines to help make our drawing look 3 dimensional. These are also called cross-contour lines, but that is a bit more advanced than we want to get into today. For the sake of keeping things simple today and geared towards beginner artists, we will just call both contour lines.
When drawing your contour lines, make sure you curve them. You don’t want to make them straight or your drawing will look flat.
How to Draw a Candy Cane Step by Step
Begin by drawing your candy cane shape or use the candy cane template. You can use a regular pencil to do this. If you’re doing your drawing on black paper you could also use a white colored pencil. White is easier to see, but it’s also harder to cover up on your drawing.
Next draw the interior contour lines that will represent the stripes on your candy cane. You want these lines to curve, like mine do.
You also need to draw a line right through the center of your candy cane to indicate where the highlight will be drawn.
Using a white oil pastel, draw a line using a back and forth motion where your center highlight line is. Do this for the entire length of your candy cane.
Using Color Theory in Art
Now you need to choose your colors. You can pick just about any color combination for your candy cane drawing.
However, sticking with two alternating colors is probably best. You could use two warm colors, like orange and pink. Or maybe pick a couple of cool colors to use instead.
These colors are some of the basic principles of color theory. This is how we determine if a set of colors would go together harmoniously.
Since this is a Christmas art project you could use red and green, which are complimentary colors. But since holiday art is supposed to be fun, don’t feel like you have to use color theory in your candy cane drawing.
Shading with Oil Pastels
For this example I’m going to use red for one of my colors. We want to do shading with our oil pastels to show a transition of color. So for the red sections you’ll need to use pink along with the red pastel.
Begin by adding the pink next to both sides of your white. Overlap your pink and white slightly to blend the colors together.
You also want to curve your strokes of color to follow your interior contour lines of your candy cane drawing.
Next to the pink, add red to fill in the remaining area of that section. Again, overlapping the two colors.
Repeat this process for every other section of your candy cane.
Next move onto your second color for your candy cane. I decided to use pink. Since pink is already the lighter color, you need to blend the white and pink together a bit more next to your white highlight.
This will create a lighter pink color so you can still have a transition of colors.
Then use pink to fill in the rest of the area at the outside edge of your section.
Repeat that process for the rest of your sections of your candy cane.
Candy Cane Drawings with Markers, Colored Pencils, and Paint
You can drawing your candy canes using markers, as well as oil pastels. The process would be almost exactly the same as shown above. The only difference is with how you blend your colors together.
If you’re using markers, you’ll want to put the lighter colors down first, then add the darker color on top or next to the light color. Then you can go back over the area where the two colors meet to blend them together.
A similar process can be used for colored pencils and paint. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new things. Keep drawing fun and try not to worry about messing up. These drawings were done on Artist Trading Cards, which is a great way to save time.
The optical illusion drawing was done following the same techniques taught in our How to Draw 3D Hands tutorial. Check it out if you want to learn more about drawing this style of op art.
How to Draw a Candy Cane Step by Step with Pictures
That’s it for learning how to draw a candy cane. By blending your colors, using shading, and adding contour lines, you can make your drawings look three-dimensional really easily. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new things. You can try some different color combinations or background designs for your drawings.
Drawing and creating art is a learned skill that anyone can do. But it does take practice and consistency. Make drawing every day a habit and you’ll see huge improvements in your skill level.
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