How to Draw a Bike

Are you ready to hit the road with your drawing skills? Today we teach you how to draw a bike in just a few simple steps. Bikes are an iconic mode of transportation that has been around for over a century and are still popular today for their practicality, sustainability, and fun. Use your bike illustration as part of your transportation clipart collection, create vintage stickers, or use it on sublimated totes and t-shirts.

Create a fun transportation drawing collection for your digital library with our drawing guides. Take flight by learning how to draw an airplane or draw a car in less than five steps.

Follow along with our FREE drawing tutorial using any traditional or digital medium you have on hand. Make a watercolor or pencil drawing, or take your bike digitally using Procreate and DesignScape.

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Step 1 - Draw a Rough Bike Sketch

Begin by creating rough sketches of your bike using your preferred drawing tool. This can include a pencil or light color of your chosen medium that you can erase or cover up.

Start with basic shapes such as circles, ovals, and rectangles to establish your bike's overall shape and proportions. Experiment with different designs using a reference photo in Procreate or on your monitor.

Draw the Wheels

In your drawing area, draw two circles for the bike wheels. Create one large and a smaller circle inside to get the wheel thickness. Freehand your rings, use a round object to trace, or use QuickShape in Procreate.

Next, add the cassette, chainrings, and hub as small circles to your bike sketch. The cassette goes on the back wheel, with the chainrings larger and closer to the back wheel and a small circle on the front for the hub. See our guide image below.

Create a Frame

Next, you need to create a bike frame that connects to the cassette, chainrings, and hub. Looking at our image below, we show you the three sections in color. In blue, sketch a thin pipe in a "V" shape from the cassette towards the chainrings, and the other angled higher up.

Then draw the frame piece from the chainrings, as we did in red, going up and toward the side to the front wheel. Lastly, draw the front frame section (seen in green) from the front wheel curving up and toward the midsection on the frame going up from the chainrings.

Add the Details

Finally, finish your bike drawing by adding the pedal, saddle, and handlebar. View our example sketch below to see how we shaped the three pieces.

Step 2 - Create the Bike Outline

Once you have a rough sketch of your bike, use a darker pencil, pen, or a texture monoline brush to create a more defined outline. First, define the unobstructed pieces, such as the cassette, chainrings, hub, and pedal. Then trace the frame, saddle, and handlebars with the wheels last.

Continue adding detail to your bike line art, like a basket on the front, bell, and spokes inside the wheels.

Step 3 - Color your Bike Illustration

With your outline complete, it's time to add some color to your bike using your preferred coloring tool. Choose a color palette you like and fill in the different sections of your bike. Add some shading for depth and highlight the parts that the light hits.

Fantastic work, we hope you enjoyed this beginner drawing exercise! With your bike clipart done, why not create a simple seamless pattern in DesignScape to print for scrapbooking or use as a background image on your devices?

Create different themed illustrations by combining your drawings with ready-made watercolor clipart. Just imagine how lovely a vintage bike with a floral basket will look on stickers, t-shirts, and wall prints.