How to Draw a Heart in 6 Easy Steps
This tutorial shows how to draw a heart with a slightly glossy, puffy, and semi-dimensional look.
The heart in this example is drawn with a black outline, a pair of reflections, and a shadow. It’s also colored a bright red.
Drawings of a simple red heart are quite common. This example shows how to make such artwork a little more interesting by adding simple highlights and a shadow to give the appearance of volume.
It’s recommended that you use light and easy-to-erase lines until you have the entire heart outlined. This makes it easier to apply corrections (if required) without leaving marks on the paper. You can trace over the drawing with a darker outline once you’re happy with the heart’s shape.
What You Need to Draw This Heart
- Regular graphite pencil: For the initial outline drawing and guide line.
- Standard eraser: To clean up the drawing and correct mistakes.
- Red colored pencil or marker: To give the heart a bright red color.
- Paper: A white sheet of paper.
- Black marker (optional): To create a black outline.
Step 1 – Draw the Upper Curve of the First Half
Before you draw the heart itself, make a straight vertical line through the area where you wish to position it. This line will act as a guide that can make it easier to see if the drawing is symmetrical.
In the example, the line is shown in blue, but you can simply create it with a regular pencil. When drawing the line, don’t apply too much pressure so that it can be easily erased later on.
Next, begin drawing the outline of the heart. Make a smooth downward curve from the top of the center line to define the upper area of the heart’s first half.
Step 2 – Draw the Lower Part of the First Half
Continue the curve downward toward what will be the heart’s bottom tip. Stop when you reach the center line.
Make this part fairly rounded to give the heart a bit of a “puffy” look. This will help create a “cute” and slightly more unique drawing.
Step 3 – Draw the Upper Curve of the Second Half
Define the heart’s second half by starting with a curve from the exact same spot at the top of the center line, running in the opposite direction. Try and make it mirror the first half as closely as possible to ensure the drawing looks symmetrical.
Step 4 – Finish the Heart’s Outline
Finish the heart’s outline by drawing the lower curve of its second half, until the two halves join at the bottom. Again, try to keep the drawing as symmetrical as you can.
Once you have the heart outlined, carefully erase the vertical line used as the guide. Next, if you’re happy with its shape, trace over the outline with a black marker or a much darker and thicker pencil stroke.
Step 5 – Add Highlights and Color the Drawing
Before you start coloring, outline a couple of highlights along the heart’s lobes (the two upward-facing curves). These will make it look like the heart is being illuminated from above, and help show a smooth and glossy surface.
Make the first reflection larger and longer (slightly curving along its respective lobe) and the second one smaller and shorter (oval in shape). You can either outline them very lightly using a regular pencil, or in red (so that the outline merges into the color later on).
For another example of making something look glossy using highlights, see:
How to Draw Beautiful Lips in 6 Easy Steps
After you’ve added the reflections, fill in the heart’s outline with red, leaving them white. For a bright red like the one in the example, use a marker or press fairly hard on a red pencil. If using a pencil, try to blend your strokes to the point where they are invisible.
Step 6 – Add a Shadow Along the Heart’s Bottom
Because the heart is drawn as though the light is coming from above it, you can add a shadow along its bottom. The shadow will help give the heart a somewhat semi-dimensional look, one that is not quite 3D but also not completely flat (sort of like an icon on a mobile phone). In a more realistic drawing, you could create a gradient where the shadow gradually gets darker towards the bottom. However, as the goal is to create stylized art, you can just use a hard transition between the light and dark areas (flat shading).
To create the shadow, you can go over the red with regular pencil shading. If you’ve used a marker for coloring, be sure to wait for it to dry, otherwise, you risk tearing the paper.
For drawing a mobile phone, see:
How to Draw a Phone Step by Step
Conclusion
This guide shows some easy ways to make a glossy, slightly puffy-looking, semi-dimensional heart. This is achieved by outlining the appropriate shape, showing highlights, and adding a basic shadow.
A great thing about the tips provided in this tutorial is that they hardly require any additional effort to implement, yet they can significantly improve the look of your artwork compared to simply drawing a flat looking red heart.
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