How to Draw Bread Step by Step

by easydrawingtips

This tutorial shows how to draw a loaf of bread in six steps. It goes from a simple line drawing to fully shaded realistic-looking artwork.

In this example, the bread loaf is a baguette, also known as “French Bread”. You can see a preview of its six drawing stages above.

This guide is fairly simple and is intended for beginners or intermediate artists who want to practice their shading techniques. Just like the examples, the tutorial is best done in pencil, though you could also use other mediums.

Supplies Needed for This Bread Loaf Drawing

Regular Pencils: An HB pencil for the initial line drawing and 2B to 6B (softer) pencils for the shading.
White Paper: Standard drawing paper or printer paper.
Eraser: A kneaded eraser can be a particularly good option for making corrections to the shading (it’s great for lifting graphite).

Step 1 – Draw The Outline of the Bread Loaf

Begin with a simple outline of the bread’s shape. Make the loaf narrower towards its back end (facing away from the viewer) to show a bit of perspective. However, be careful not to overdo this, as more extreme perspectives can make things look really big or “in your face”.

For more on perspective drawing see:

Perspective Drawing Tutorial for Beginners

Step 2 – Draw the Slashes

Along the top of the loaf, add the slashes that are so characteristic of this type of bread. Be sure to draw them in a way where they wrap around the baguette’s shape to emphasize that it’s not flat and has volume.

The bread loaf will have a fairly hard shadow, so you can outline its edge. In this case, the light is coming from above and very slightly to the front of the baguette. This means the shadow will be pretty much underneath it, stretching just a tiny bit backward.

Step 3 – Shade the Shadow

Once you have the basic outline, the drawing is ready for shading. You can start with the loaf’s shadow. Darken it but don’t go full strength as you will want to add even darker areas later on.

Step 4 – Shade the Baguette

Similar to the shadow, fill in the baguette (excluding the slashes) with a slightly lighter medium gray.

At this stage, don’t worry if the drawing looks flat. It will begin looking more three-dimensional in the next step.

Step 5 – Darken the Shading

As already mentioned, in this particular example, the light is coming from above and very slightly to the front of the baguette. This means that the loaf should have a lighter area running pretty much along its entire middle area. Make its bottom lighter to show light reflecting from the surface the baguette is sitting on. Add a darker part running up from above this. Also add some very dark sections along the sides of the slashes where the crust hangs over them.

In addition to the baguette, the shadow also has a bit of a gradient. Make it slightly darker near the base of the loaf and lighter as it moves away from it.

To show that the baguette has a smooth surface, make the transition between most of the above areas very gradual. Create the smooth shading by blending your strokes to the point where they are pretty much invisible.

For more on different stroke types and shading methods, see:

Shading Techniques and Stroke Types Drawing Tutorial

Step 6 – Finish the Drawing

For the last part of the drawing, shade the remaining parts of the slashes. Make these a very light gray with some darker streaks mixed into it to create the texture of the dough that is pulled apart as the bread bakes.

With the above done, your drawing of the baguette should be finished. However, you can refine the shading if needed by lightening certain areas with the eraser or darkening others by pressing harder on the pencil.

Conclusion

As shown in this and many other tutorials here on EasyDrawingTips, proper shading can make art that would otherwise look plain and flat stand out and appear to have volume. The line drawing and even early shading stages of the baguette are not particularly interesting. However, once properly refined, the shading makes the bread appear three-dimensional and helps convey its different textures.

If you like these types of drawing guides, also be sure to look at the following: