how to draw a bicycle

Easy How to Draw a Bike Tutorial and Bike Coloring Page

Learn how to draw a bike, the classic type with a frame that is strong and sturdy without any frills. They have a timeless appeal, no matter how fancy modern bicycles get.

Have you ever wondered how long bicycles have been around? A pretty long time! A baron in Germany named Karl von Drais created the first steerable, two-wheeled contraption in 1817. Known sometimes as the "velocipede," "hobby-horse," and "running machine," this early invention made him widely considered as the father of the bicycle.

Although bicycles are not that complicated, if you had to draw one from memory, it might become trickier than you think. Remembering what connects to what, and where, can become difficult if you don't have one in front of you. Or a least a photo of a real bike.

This tutorial walks a beginner artist through the drawing of a simple bicycle, one with sturdy wheels, fenders and handlebars. It could certainly be customized with racing stripes and bright colors, but for those that would just like to learn how to draw a bike, it's ready to go.

Getting Started with Drawing Guides

The best way to get students off to a good start to any drawing lesson is to show them how to use guides as a reference point.

You may have noticed that all of the tutorials on this site have a dashed line running through the center of each step, both in the horizontal and vertical direction. If students make their own centered lines on theirown paper, before drawing, they will have an easy reference to follow.

For instance, as seen in Step 1 below, the two circles for the wheels are centered in the two halves of the paper, and extend just a bit above the center horizontal line. It's important to get these two shapes to scale and in place to make the rest of the bike shapes come together.

Drawing skills are all about getting the size and placement of lines on paper, so having some visual reference point to get started, will always help anyone learn how to be a little more accurate.

So does that mean students need to get out a ruler to draw a big fat line down the center of their paper before they start? Goodness no, please don't! That will most likely be hard to erase and distract from any finished art. No, simply fold the sheet of paper in half both ways, make a crease, and unfold. The beauty is that by the time the drawing is done and colored in, the creases will disappear.

And now, on to our bicycle drawing project.

Preview of the Step by Step Bike Tutorial

Bike Coloring Page

Materials for Bike Drawing

Pencil. The Ticonderoga brand are the most reliable, make nice dark lines when you need them, and are the easiest to erase. Buying the pre-sharpened ones will save busy teachers a lot of time.

Eraser. Large ones you can hold in your hand do a much better job than just the pencil tip erasers, especially when erasing leftover pencil lines after tracing.

Black Sharpie Marker. These fine point permanent marker pens make nice black outlines, have a good tip for coloring, and never bleed when they get wet. Use them with good ventilation and add extra paper underneath to protect your tables.

Prang Crayons. These are a bit softer than other crayons so they sometimes look like oil pastels. They also have a some nice brown shades that Crayola does not have unless you buy their larger boxes.

Crayola Crayons. The reliable brand that always works well. The 24 pack has some of my favorite golden orange and yellow colors that seem a bit richer and warmer than the ones Prang has.