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The Art of Drawing Waves: A Step-by-Step Guide
The ocean’s waves have been inspiring artworks for centuries due to their beauty and grandiosity. Learning how to draw waves is a great skill to have in order to enhance a scene set in the ocean. A wave drawing can set up various scenarios within an ocean scene and provide life and movement. In this tutorial, we will explore the basics of wave sketching and how to create realistic wave drawings.
Before you start sketching, you will need a few materials. Necessary materials for this tutorial include a set of pencils, a sharpener, and an eraser. You may also want to have a few sheets of paper to practice with.
Creating the Basic Wave Shape
Begin by establishing the scale of the wave drawing by drawing the basic cylindrical shape of the wave. Form the wave as if it were a hollowed-out cylinder, like a toilet roll. Use curvy squiggly lines to suggest a water-like form.
Once you have the basic wave shape, you can add shading and movement to the water using darker pencils to give the wave drawing a realistic wave-like flow. Wave sketching can be done by extending the bottom of the wave along a horizontal plane, creating a C-shape. Refine the wave by using light shading and linework, making strokes from the inner section of the wave extending outward.
Creating Contrast
Create contrast between swift curling water and crashing water by using darker shading for the curling water and lighter, scribble-like shading for the crashing water. Outline the crashing water shape to make it distinct from the swift-moving water. Darken the line work within the curl of the wave and along the top curve. Avoid coloring in the swift-curving water area.
Ocean waves drawing is not difficult once you understand the curling cylindrical shape. The wave structure is technically a cylindrical shape that extends from the foreground to the background. The line work in the curves and zig-zag shading within the swift-moving water should not be colored in completely. We want to have good contrast between the water that swiftly curls and the crashing of the wave. Taking your time is what will develop your wave sketch into a realistic drawing of a wave. The crash of a wave is not difficult to draw once you have the cylindrical shape of the wave drawn. You want to leave out a cloud-like or squiggly-blob shape at the edge of the wave.
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How to Draw A Wave – Let’s get Started!
Like all new drawing challenges, learning how to draw a cloud will be made easier if you break it down into smaller, more manageable steps.
With this in mind, we will start simply in this step. The first line we will be drawing in will be a very curly, curvy line as it appears in the reference image. It will end in a very curved line that we will be building on later.
Step 2 – Draw in another curved line for your wave
Continuing on with your wave drawing, we shall add in one more line underneath the one you just did.
This line will extend from under the ending curved line at the right-hand side that you drew in the first step and curve out. With that line added, we can move on to step 3!
Step 3 – Continue adding in more curvy lines
We’ve been taking it slowly and simply so far in this guide on how to draw a wave, so for this step, we will start to add in more drastic curved lines to it.
Firstly, draw in a more jagged but still slightly curved line connecting on the left-hand side of the wave as you can see in the image.
Then, you can add a much curvier line under the line at the far right of your wave. You can also vary these lines a bit to put your own unique spin on your wave drawing as well!
Sketching Tools For Your Wave Drawing
Tools you might want to use for your wave drawing include:
- An H pencil: These pencils have a hard lead that leaves a light trace on the paper, and that’s just what you need when sketching. In case you make some mistakes, it’s easier to erase them when the lines are thin and light, as they are with an H pencil.
- An HB pencil: We recommend using a medium-hard lead for adding details and softly shading your sketch with light grey hues.
- A 4B pencil: A 4B lead is the softest and darkest of the three pencils. It’s best for shading your wave drawing and adding dark grey, almost black tones to your sketch.
- A kneaded eraser: Kneaded erasers are highly malleable and you can tweak them into whatever shape you want, depending on the shapes you want to erase. That’s why we recommend you add them to your stack of art supplies!
- Lightly textured sketch paper: This paper’s soft surface is perfect for beginners because your pencil can easily glide over it. Plus, it’s also easier to erase unneeded lines.
Of course, you don’t *have* to use these tools. Feel free to try them out, but use whatever tools you’re comfortable with!
Even the BIOWARS lead artist doesn’t use all of these tools in the video. It’s perfectly fine to use just one pencil and whatever paper and eraser you have. All that matters is that you’re willing to learn how to draw waves!
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How To Draw A Wave In 4 Steps
Drawing a wave may seem scary at first because of all the details, but we’ll break the process into several steps so that you can easily follow it.
1. Set The Stage
Recommended tool: H pencil
The first thing we’ll do is draw a horizontal line.
This line represents the tranquil sea (or the ocean) from which the big wave will soon rise:
2. Outline The Wave
Recommended tool: H pencil
Next, let’s define the shape of the wave.
To do this, we need to first draw a single curved line.
Start just below the horizontal line (somewhere around its middle), curve the line and then point it upward.
Then curve the line again, to create a large shape like so:
Now, let’s add some width to the wave.
Start around the middle of the curve you just drew (this part of the wave is called the lip) and sketch a wavy line.
Point the line to the left and then curve it down, to connect it to the wave’s starting point:
Next, attach a wavy line to the curve you just drew, like this:
Waves are mainly caused by winds, which cause the water to circulate and rise.
We’ll now add details to depict the water that’s falling down — the so-called white water.
Let’s draw a bunch of spiky connected shapes of various sizes on the wave, like so:
Now, let’s sketch the water on the inside of the wave, i.e. the wave pocket.
You can draw it in one stroke by starting from the wavy line on the left. Mix spiky and round shapes as you get close to the right side of the wave:
We’ll now use a similar mixture of spikes and curvy lines and add it in front and below the wave’s basic shape to draw the trough.
We want to depict the water as it gently rises up, so make sure your shapes are slightly angled and that they stretch from one end of the wave to the other, like this:
3. Finalize The Wave Outline
Recommended tools: H pencil, kneaded eraser
To finalize the wave outline, let’s first erase the part of the horizontal line that goes through the wave.
You can also erase the curved line that separates the wavy line and the spikes we added to depict the water falling down.
Then, we can add some drops of water here and there, because waves can be very powerful (depending on the strength of the wind) and cause a lot of water to rise above the sea level.
4. Shade Your Wave Drawing
Recommended tools: HB and 4B pencils, blending stump, kneaded eraser
To shade the wave, let’s combine the HB and 4B pencils.
We’ll use the HB pencil for lighter grey tones and the 4B lead to add dark greys to the sketch.
Of course, you can use just one pencil and apply different levels of pressure on it to create light and dark shades of grey.
The top of the wave and the white water need to remain light, i.e., white, so make sure not to shade them.
On the other hand, the wave face sees the least light of all parts of the wave, so we need to keep that part darker than the rest:
Continue to add light and dark greys around the wave.
You can also use a blending stump to make the transitions from darker to lighter shades (and vice versa) smoother. (Your fingers work just fine in case you don’t have a blending stump!)
We recommend using an eraser to add highlights to parts of the wave, like this:
You can also softly shade the rest of your paper, to add more dimension to your sketch. The closer to the edges you get, the darker the greys become:
Finished Your Wave Drawing? Try These Next!
Now that you’re done drawing a wave, it’d be a shame to stop here.
Continue to improve your artistic skills with our tutorials on:
- How to draw fire
- How to draw a tree
- How to draw a mushroom
- How to draw a rose
- How to draw a car
If you want to add human characters to your comic book, we also have a lot of guides on person drawing, such as:
- How to draw a person
- How to draw a face
- How to draw eyes
- How to draw a nose
- How to draw a mouth
And if you’d like to learn how to draw animals, we got that covered, too:
- How to draw a dragon
- How to draw a panda
- How to draw a bunny
- How to draw a dog
We have many more step-by-step guides on our blog — check them out!
