How to Draw a Spider
Learning how to draw a spider is easy and fun, if you do it correctly. We’ll show you how to use basic shapes to layout your drawing. As well as how to outline and color your spider drawing with markers.
If you follow the simple step by step process we’re going to show you today, it will make your drawing time a lot less stressful. And your creativity time should always be a joyful experience.
Let’s grab some supplies and get ready to have some fun learning how to draw spiders.
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Art Supplies
- Thin black marker
- Paper or cardstock
- Markers
- Pencil
- Click Eraser, Pink Pearl Eraser
- White Gelly Roll pen
Quick Sketch Exercise
Doing some quick sketches before working on your drawings will help in many different ways. They will help you warm up your drawing muscles for sure. But they will also help you learn about whatever it is you’re getting ready to draw.
You’ll start to notice things about your subject matter that you never noticed before. And quick sketching will help you work through the basic shapes and proportions of your spiders.
To do a quick sketch session simply set a timer for three or five minutes. And then sketch out as many spiders as you can before the timer goes off.
You could also sketch until you run out of room on your paper. But you still want to do them very quickly. Use reference photos when doing this exercise.
How to Draw a Spider Step by Step
When learning how to draw a spider it will be much easier if we lay out some basic shapes and guidelines. It will also help us to get over the hump of staring at a blank piece of paper.
Breaking anything down into simple steps will make things so much easier.
Step 1: Basic Shapes
Begin by drawing the shape of the body and laying out where the legs will go. The top of the body should be an oval. And the bottom half of the body should be an oval that comes down to a point at the bottom.
Step 2: Add Details
Now let’s start adding in some of the details. Start by refining the shape of the head and fangs.
Then draw the lower half of the body and where the two parts of the body connect.
Next start drawing out the details for the legs. Notice how the legs are a combination of different sections.
Continue drawing each leg of your spider until all eight are drawn out.
Add an hourglass shape to the back.
Keep working on all the details of your spider drawing until you’re happy with how it looks. It’s always a good idea to draw lightly so corrections are easy to make.
And don’t worry about things being perfect. Have fun and enjoy your creative time. Perfection isn’t required.
Spider Outline
Step 3: Outline & Cleanup
Making your spider outline is really easy. Simply trace over the pencil lines you want to keep with a black pen or marker. You can make your lines thin, thick, or a combination of the two. Or a different color other than black.
How you choose to make your spider outline will depend primarily on your artistic style. If you’re not sure what your style is, then you need more practice. Your own style will develop over time.
Use an erase to clean up your drawing and remove all the pencil lines.
How to Draw a Spider with Markers
Learning how to draw a spider with markers is really easy. This is the final step in the step by step process for making your spider drawings. There are a few things you should keep in mind when using markers to color your artwork.
First, if you want to be able to blend your colors together you need to use alcohol based markers. Bic, Sharpie, and Copic for example. As well as many others.
Second, you need to work while the colors are still wet or they won’t mix together. This isn’t a big deal. Just make sure you work on a section at a time.
Third, you need to use colors that are similar to each other if you want to create a smooth transition of color. If your markers are too different they will leave a harder edge.
Step 4: Color Your Artwork
When adding color to your spider drawing, or any other drawings, you want to avoid filling them in with one solid color. Our spiders are going to be black, but we want to use other colors as well.
For my spider I decided to add in some blue throughout my drawing. I also added a red hourglass to its back.
Whether you’re using markers, colored pencils, or paint, try adding in some additional colors besides black.
You can also use a white Gelly Roll pen for some highlights.
There are many different ways to color your spider drawings. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try different things. I like using artist trading cards for my drawings because it’s a huge time saver.
Check out our Guide to ATCs for more information on making them and what they are.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Now that you know how to draw a spider, what’s the next step? From here you want to practice drawing as often as possible.
Even if it’s only for a few minutes each day, drawing consistently will help you improve much quicker than trying to draw for several hours at a time.
Most of us don’t have 20 hours a week to dedicate to creating art, and that’s ok. But creating art and drawing are learned skills that do take practice and time.
So try to make creating art a part of your daily routine. Challenge yourself to do a series of spider drawings and see what you can come up with. It will help your art skills and your creativity.
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