Drawing 3D Shapes Educational Resources K12 Learning, Visual Arts, Fine Arts Lesson Plans, Activities, Experiments, Homeschool Help

Lesson Plan - Get It!

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Draw a simple object, like a ball or a box.

How do you make a ball look like a ball and not just a circle?
How can you make a box look like a box, not just a square or rectangle?

Drawing plain, two-dimensional shapes is pretty easy.

Chances are, you've been doing it since at least your grade school years. Doing it well, quickly, and easily takes some practice, but circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles probably need little introduction.

Drawing three-dimensional, or 3D, objects, however, is more challenging. The simple shapes mentioned above are two-dimensional; they have two dimensions: height and width.

Two-dimensional objects appear flat. Three-dimensional objects possess one more dimension in addition to height and width, which is depth.

Here is a classic example of depth: Imagine standing between a set of railroad tracks (do not try this at home). If you look down the tracks to the horizon, the tracks appear to get closer and closer together until they appear to meet off in the distance.

They appear to meet — this is an important distinction. The tracks never meet, but it only seems so to our eyes. This is useful because it helps us see depth and understand how far away things are from one another.

When we draw 3D objects, we are really producing an illusion. All our drawings on paper are two-dimensional, but we use a few easy tricks to produce the illusion of 3D.

Look at some of those tricks by turning 2D shapes into 3D shapes.

Continuous one-line drawing of a cardboard box.

Read Drawing 3-D Shapes: 5 Tutorials and Expert Tips & Tricks on making 3D shapes from familiar 2D shapes like triangles, squares, and circles.

As you read, follow the techniques for each shape and create the following.

a pyramid
a cube
a cylinder
a sphere
a cone
another 3D shape

Share your completed 3D drawings with someone, then reflect on the following questions and discuss.

What is the difference between 2D and 3D objects?
Why are 3D objects useful in art? Can you think of any examples?
When are 2D objects useful in art? Can you think of any examples?

You have practiced some basic skills to create 3D drawings. Many objects in the real world are variations of these simple 3D shapes or composites. That means they are irregular combinations of two or more 3D shapes.

In the Got It? section, look at some examples of 3D objects used in real works of art.