How to Draw a Lemon

Today we are guiding you through the steps on how to draw a lemon. With fresh citrus scents and funny faces, many people love lemons. Delicious for cooking or baking, Lemons also add a fun personality to any artwork. You can even get creative by turning your drawing into stickers for baked goods.

Before you begin this tutorial, gather your supplies together. Our drawing tutorials can be used with any medium you have on hand. This can be crayons, paint, or digital programs like Procreate and Photoshop.

For this drawing tutorial, we are using Procreate.

We will be using these ink Procreate brushes to create the outlines, add color and the final details.



Step 1 - Create a Rough Sketch of a Lemon

To get started, let us roughly sketch the shapes that make up our lemon drawing. We recommend using a medium that can easily be removed or covered up. You can use a pencil or a light-colored medium that can be hidden when outlining and adding color to your lemon.

Sketch the Base Lemon Shape

For the first rough shape, sketch out an oval at a slight angle. The ends of the oval will be the top and bottom of your lemon.

Next, sketch additional sections to complete the shape of your lemon.

On the bottom of your lemon, follow the curve of the oval and sketch a nub. Following the curves at the top, add two bumps just past the line with an indent in the middle.

We decided to extend the left side of our lemon a little bit. This gave it a more rounded, natural shape. See our example below as a guide.

Sketch the Stem and Leaf

We are going to sketch a stem and leaf for the next part. Start at the top of your lemon by the indent. Now, sketch a stem as we did in our example below. Then, on the one side of the stem sketch a basic leaf shape.

A short stem can be drawn to attach the leaf to the main stem. The leaf can also be sketched directly from the main stem in the same way as drawing a peach.

Step 2 - Outline your Lemon Sketch

Once you have roughly sketched out your lemon, switch over to a more defined medium. This can be something like a marker to make the outlines permanent. Outline the outermost sketch lines for the lemon body, including the stem and leaf.

To give the lemon more shape, a short line was drawn from the middle of the top indent. Once you are done outlining, you can remove the rough sketches.

Step 3 - Add Color and Detail to your Lemon

In the final step of how to draw a lemon, we are going to add some color.

For our color palette, we chose a light and dark shade of yellow. This will be the base color and shadow of the lemon. Two shades of green will be used for the stem and leaf.

Add Base Colors

Fill the lemon base with the lighter shade of yellow. Next, color the leaf and stem with a light green.

Add Shadow Detail

Create some shadow depth using the darker shade of green and yellow.

Begin at the top of the lemon using the short line as a guide. Now, add the darker yellow to the right side of the lemon. Follow the curve of your lemon all the way to the bottom and around the nub.

Add the darker shade of green to the lower half of the leaf. Then, add a little bit at the top of the stem.

Draw in the Details

Once you have finished coloring in your lemon, use an outline medium to add more detail. If you look at our example below, veins were added to the leaf. Some irregular dots were also placed near the top half of the lemon.

To complete the detail, a few lines were added to the shaded half. Feel free to add any kind of detail you want here.

That’s it, great job on drawing your very own lemon! You can change things up by adding more leaves. Why not create a collection of lemons in different sizes and shapes? We hope you enjoyed following along with this fruity tutorial and drawing a lemon with us.