How to Draw a Bear: Blocking in the basic shape

You make drawing a lot easier for yourself by breaking the major tasks into stages. Start your drawings with a light sketch to capture the posture, proportions, and angles of your subject. I use an erasable “col-erase” non-photo blue pencil to block in your initial drawing. I then draw directly over this framework with a graphite pencil, adding the details and texture. The blue pencil establishes the shape so I do not need to think about the fine grain detail and the big picture proportions at the same time.

The blue lines represent the first guidelines that I would establish to block in the bear. Once this blue pencil framework is complete, I go over it with graphite pencil to draw the details of the bear. In this series, I show the final bear drawing throughout the initial stages so that you can see how I simplify the shape. Real non-photo blue pencil lines are much lighter than the lines you see in this demonstration, they are barely visible but are exaggerated here to help you follow the steps. Play with these techniques and discover how to draw a bear.