How to Draw a Book. An Easy Step by Step Guide

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In this guide, I will teach you how to draw books from several perspectives and orientations.

You will learn how to add details to your book drawing and all that in an easy to understand step by step guide.

This Guide is meant for Beginners but intermediate artists may learn a thing or two as well.

So let´s learn how to draw a book!

What Tools Do I Need for this Guide?

You will need a soft graphite Pencil. Any will do, as long as you can achieve very light and dark lines at the same time with it.

You will need some drawing paper. I recommend a medium strength sketching paper or illustration board.

And finally, you need an eraser. Any regular Eraser does the job but I always recommend a kneadable eraser.

I personally like them best because they can lighten up your lines easily and they erase very cleanly and don’t leave any dirt on the paper.

That’s about it. The tools don’t really matter all that much, as long as you are only exercising, so don’t get too hung up on them. And let´s get started!

So Let´s Learn How to Draw a Book Step by Step

Step1: Let´s Establish the Perspective

We will start by establishing a Horizon line.

So simply Draw a horizontal line on the top half of the Page.

Then choose a vanishing point somewhere on the horizon line. I chose a point in the left half of the page.

This will be the vanishing point for the first Book.

Now sketch out a rough rectangle with two sites converging towards the vanishing point and the other two sites will be parallel to the horizon line.

Then give the rectangle some depth by drawing vertical lines down from the corners of the rectangle.

Finally, draw lines parallel to the first rectangle and the rough sketch of your first book is done.

Step 2: Another Book with More Vanishing Points

Now for the second book, we will choose two vanishing points of the horizon line.

These Vanishing points should be quite far apart from each other to avoid too much distortion.

After you chose your vanishing points you can pretty much repeat the same steps as above. First, draw a Rectangle only this time the two opposing sites will go to one of each vanishing points.

Give the rectangle some depth by drawing vertical lines down from each of the corners and then draw parallel lines to each of the rectangle lines.

Exactly the same way as in step one.

Step 3: More Books

Now continue to choose more vanishing points and repeat the same steps as above.

Get creative and try different things. Maybe even challenge yourself and stack some books on top of each other.

Don´t be afraid to make mistakes, you will learn from them and get better!

Step 4: Let´s Draw Some Standing Books

Finally, we will draw some books, that are standing next to each other.

These books will have the same vanishing point and the other sites of the rectangle will be parallel to the horizon line, to make things easier.

You can vary them in size to make the composition look more interesting.

Step 5: Adding Some Basic Details

Now, that you sketched out where your books are gonna be and how big they are gonna be, you can lighten up the guidelines and delete the unimportant lines, that you don´t need anymore.

Then draw the outlines of the books a little darker but be careful! Don´t make them too dark, you may need to erase parts of the line later on! You can also start adding some little Details like loose pages.

Step 6: Adding More Details

Now, all that is left to do is adding details. Add as many details as you like.

Feel free to look at some pictures of old books for reference.

Now Add some Titels to the books.

I drew some guidelines to establish where the writing is gonna be and how tall the individual Letters are going to be.

Then I very lightly sketched out the individual letters until it looked right.

After that, I simply traced the guidelines a little darker and done! The book has a title.

And some last details on the other Books and we are done.

Down below there is a video where you can see the whole Drawing from start to finish.

You can also feel free to color your Drawing as well. As long as the colors you choose are not too bright the books will look great.

If you want to know how I color my drawings then have a look at my guide on drawing airplanes where I go in-depth about coloring my drawings and where I show a step by step example by painting an airplane.

Even if it is Hard in the beginning don´t give up!

You will get better at drawing as long as you stick with it. So keep on Drawing!

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