How to Draw a Book

In today's beginner drawing guide on how to draw a book, we show you how to bring your love for literature to life. In just three easy steps, you will create sketches, outline, and apply color to a simple and beautiful illustration. From capturing the book's unique shape to adding details like pages and content, you'll be able to make a book doodle that will be perfect as study clipart, reading list tracker, and stickers.

Fill your book with hand-drawn content using our FREE drawing tutorials. There are tutorials on how to draw animals, food, holiday elements, and unique objects.

To follow along with this guide, get your supplies ready. You can use mediums like pastels, paint, or digitally create your book illustration with Procreate or DesignScape.

Step 1 - Create a Rough Book Sketch

Using a light sketching medium, such as a pencil, sketch out the shape of an open book with dimension. Keep your lines soft, as you can always erase or cover them later.

Sketch the Main Shape

Start drawing a horizontal rectangle the size you want your book to be. Then add a straight line through the center where the spine is.

Add Dimension

Add dimension to your book by sketching two upward-curving lines at the top and bottom of your rectangle. The higher you make the curves, the more dimension your book will have.

Add the Pages

Using your previous two sketches as a guide, begin adding your pages. For each page line you add, you may have to draw another curved line at the top and bottom.

Looking at our example sketch below, on the right side, we added two-page lines. Our spacing between them is large, so the closer we got to our center line, we drew a higher curve at the top and bottom.

Add a small downward bump at the bottom of the center line to give dimension to your book's spine.

Step 2 - Define your Book Outline

Now that you have a rough sketch of your book, it's time to create an outline. Using a pen or marker, trace over the lines of your drawing to make them permanent. Pay close attention to the details, such as the pages and cover, and trace the sketch lines from the center pages outward.

Begin tracing over the first center pages as we did in red. Then outline the second set of pages (shown in blue). The last sketch line you should trace is the book cover in a rectangular shape and a small bump for the spine at the bottom.

Add More Pages

At this point, if you feel like your book needs a couple more pages, add them now. We added two extra page lines between the large gap on the right side. Once you are done, clean up your drawing by removing the rough sketches.

Fill your Book

To complete your book drawing, fill your pages with content. This can be anything from drawing a mushroom, adding text, or making a spell book with a crystal drawing and doodles.

Note: When you have a curved page like our right will need to know how to warp your content to make it look realistic.

Step 3 - Apply Color to your Book

For our final step, you will add color, patterns, and shading. You can use any color that fits your book clipart's content and drawing style. When adding color, start with the content on your pages, then move on to the pages, and finally, the cover.

Add more details like patterns and elements to your pages and cover. We used these Procreate pattern brushes to fill the edges of the content pages with a quick brush stroke.

Use different shading techniques, such as cross-hatching and stippling, or use the smudge tool in Procreate to blend your colors.

Why not create a library of books that combine your main outlines and fill the pages with magic illustrations? Apply your newly created drawing as clipart, sublimation designs, or SVG crafts. Thank you for joining us on this drawing exercise. We can't wait to see what creative reading illustrations you come up with.