• 60 ideas
  • Checked October 2026

Cubism Drawing Ideas

Three cubist subjects per press, each with the move to make.

Cubism Drawing Ideas

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  1. Portrait with a patterned-paper jacketPaste the pattern as one flat shape and do not bend it around the body. Draw head and hands in line.
  2. Stool with its seat and legs from different viewsThe seat is a full circle, as from above; the legs stay in side view. Overlap the two.
  3. Bicycle seen from several sidesBoth wheels as full circles from the side, the handlebars from above. Overlap them and share the frame.

Next step Set up a still life to drawMore to cut and paste

All 60 ideas

Still life in facets 15

  • Bottle and a folded newspaper on a tipped table Tilt the tabletop up as if seen from above and keep the bottle in side view. Two views, one drawing.
  • Candle with its glow drawn as hard-edged shapes Draw the glow as solid triangles. Candle, light and shadow become the same kind of flat shape.
  • Chessboard and pieces on a tilted table Squares from above, pieces from the side. Break the grid wherever a piece crosses it.
  • Clarinet laid across a table edge Run the instrument through three planes. Wherever it crosses a line, shift it sideways a finger's width.
  • Coffee pot, cup and spoon as cylinders and cones Reduce each object to a solid first. Then slice the solids and let the slices overlap.
  • Fruit bowl seen from above and from the side The rim is a full circle, as from above; the foot is a side view. Join the two with straight edges.
  • Glass and pitcher with see-through planes Show each round mouth from above and each profile from the side. Let the planes behind show through.
  • Guitar seen from the front and the side at once Draw the front of the body, then slide the side view against it. Let the sound hole appear twice.
  • Kettle in one pencil, light and dark only With color gone, the facets and their shading carry the form. Change the tone at every edge.
  • Pair of old boots in facets Turn every curve into three or four straight edges. Let the creases in the leather decide where the facets break.
  • Potted plant with leaves as flat blades Each leaf is a kite shape with a hard center crease. Tilt the rim of the pot toward the viewer.
  • Stack of books showing spine, cover and page edge at once Spines from the side, covers from above, pages from the end. Fan the three views like a hand of cards.
  • Stool with its seat and legs from different views The seat is a full circle, as from above; the legs stay in side view. Overlap the two.
  • Teapot with two spouts, one from each view Draw it from the left, then from the right, one on top of the other. Keep both spouts.
  • Violin broken into overlapping planes Cut the outline with straight lines, shift each piece a little and shade one edge of every piece.

Faces from two sides 15

  • Cat's face with front and side joined Front-view eyes and whiskers on a side-view muzzle. The ears can point two different ways.
  • Cellist sharing planes with the cello Let the curve of the cello become the shoulder. Player and instrument share shapes, not just space.
  • Dog's head turned through three positions Left profile, front and right profile fanned across the page and joined at the nose.
  • Face in a broken mirror Draw the cracks first. Fill each shard with the face as seen from a slightly different side.
  • Face with the hidden ear brought around Turn the head as you draw. The ear you cannot see goes where it would be a quarter turn later.
  • Front-view face with a profile nose Draw both eyes facing you, then the nose from the side along the center line. One face, two viewpoints.
  • Head built from eight flat planes Forehead, two cheeks, nose, chin, two sides of the jaw, crown. Give each plane one flat tone of its own.
  • Laughing face shown at two moments Draw the mouth closed and open on the same head, a little offset. Two moments share one face.
  • One portrait from three sittings Sketch a friend from the front, three-quarter and side. Build one large head from the best part of each.
  • Pair of hands as blocks and wedges Each finger is three boxes. Turn some boxes to face you and some away, then shade the tops lightest.
  • Portrait built from rectangles and half-circles Hold yourself to two shapes. A cheek is a half-circle, a nose a tall rectangle. Shade each one flat.
  • Profile whose eye looks straight out at you A side-view head with a front-view eye: the simplest way to put two viewpoints in one face.
  • Seated figure that changes view at every joint Head in profile, shoulders from the front, knees from the side. Mark each switch with a hard straight edge.
  • Self-portrait split into a front half and a profile half The center line doubles as the edge of the profile. The left half looks at you; the right looks away.
  • Two faces that share one eye Overlap a profile and a front view so one eye belongs to both. Darken the part where they overlap.

Pasted paper 15

  • Bottle shape cut from newspaper Paste the newsprint first, then draw over and around it. The paper is the bottle; the pencil adds the table.
  • Clarinet made of paper strips alone One long black strip and a row of small pale dots, with no drawing at all. See how little it takes.
  • Coffee cup cut from a paper bag Paste the cup flat and draw its round mouth as seen from above. Tear, do not cut, a strip for the steam.
  • Cut letters that spell part of a word Clip big letters from a headline and paste only a fragment of a word. Draw the scene around them.
  • Fruit bowl of colored paper with charcoal shading The later, Synthetic phase used simpler shapes and brighter color. Cut bold flat fruit and shade one side.
  • Guitar body cut from sheet music Sheet music was one of the papers the Cubists pasted. Cut the body from it and draw the neck in charcoal.
  • Pencil drawing of your own collage Paste a small paper still life, then draw it in pencil with every cut edge and every overlap.
  • Pencil table with a wallpaper tablecloth Wallpaper and tablecloth were typical pasted papers. The printed pattern stays flat while the table tilts.
  • Playing card pasted on a drawn table Paste a card, or a hand-drawn copy of one, square to the page while the table tilts under it.
  • Portrait with a patterned-paper jacket Paste the pattern as one flat shape and do not bend it around the body. Draw head and hands in line.
  • Still life rebuilt from one cut-up page Cut a printed page into ten straight-edged pieces and rebuild a pitcher and glass. Fill the gaps in pencil.
  • Ticket and stamp pasted into a table sketch Small real scraps bring a date and a place. Paste them where they would lie on the table.
  • Violin from brown paper and corrugated cardboard Two textures make one instrument. Draw the strings across both so the pieces read as a single thing.
  • Window view built from envelope linings The printed linings of old envelopes make sky, wall and shutters. Outline the window in charcoal.
  • Wood-grain rubbing pasted in as a tabletop Rub a crayon over a plank, cut the rubbing out and paste it down. The texture stands in for drawing.

Everyday scenes broken up 15

  • Band on a stage with players and instruments merged Trade shapes between them. One curve can be the side of a double bass and a shoulder at once.
  • Bicycle seen from several sides Both wheels as full circles from the side, the handlebars from above. Overlap them and share the frame.
  • Breakfast table from your seat and from across it Draw your plate from above and the far cup from the front. Mark the line where the viewpoint flips.
  • Bridge and river in the same facets Turn the arches into straight-edged shapes. Give the water the same facets as the stone, only lighter.
  • Café table with a cup, a glass and a newspaper Table from above, objects from the side. Let the table edge break and restart beyond the cup.
  • City street cut into vertical strips Slice the view into tall strips and slide every other strip up a little, so the windows no longer line up.
  • Kitchen counter from above and from the front Burner rings as full circles, cupboard doors head-on. Join the two views along the counter edge.
  • Laundry line between two buildings The shirts become flat four-sided shapes. Let the walls show through them, as if every plane were glass.
  • Market stall with crates from above and the awning head-on Fruit crates as a grid from above, the striped awning from the front. Let the stripes run down into the crates.
  • Roofs on a hillside as stacked blocks Leave no sky between them: the houses pile to the top of the page. Each roof is one light plane, one dark.
  • Sailboats in a harbor as triangles Sails are triangles, hulls are wedges and the water repeats both. Overlap the boats until they lock.
  • Staircase seen going up and going down Draw the flight twice, from the top and from the foot, and let the two share their middle steps.
  • Station clock, platform and roof in three views The clock face head-on, the platform in steep perspective, the roof beams from below. One picture.
  • Winter tree in straight segments Every branch is a run of short straight lines meeting at angles. Fill the gaps between with flat tones.
  • Your desk tilted up like a map Draw the desktop as a flat rectangle. Lay each object on it in whichever view explains it best.

How it works

Cubism began in Paris in the early 1900s. These 60 subjects are plain ones on purpose, a guitar, a bottle, a face, a café table, so that the way they are drawn is what the eye notices.

Read the full guide

The two phases of Cubism

Historians often split the movement in two. Analytic Cubism, about 1910 to 1912, came first. Synthetic Cubism, from about 1912 to 1914, used simpler shapes and brighter colors and brought in pasted paper: newspaper, wallpaper, sheet music. The Pasted paper group here follows that second phase; the other three break a subject into facets and viewpoints.

One move per drawing

Choose one: tilt the table, add a second viewpoint, cut the outline into planes, or paste a paper. A drawing that tries all four turns to noise.

  • Draw the object plainly first. Draw it again from another side on tracing paper and lay one over the other.
  • Shade each facet from dark at one edge to light at the next, so that the planes separate.

Questions and answers

What is cubism in simple terms?

A way of picturing a subject from several viewpoints at once, in place of one fixed view. The subject is broken up and put back together on the page. The name comes from a critic's remark about cubes.

What is an easy cubist drawing?

Front-view face with a profile nose, or Profile whose eye looks straight out at you. Each needs only one change of viewpoint. Among objects, try Teapot with two spouts, one from each view.

Can I draw cubism in pencil?

Yes. Three of the four groups need nothing else: straight edges, overlapping planes, a tone for each facet. Only Pasted paper asks for scissors, glue and scraps.

How is this different from abstract drawing?

Abstract drawing ideas mostly start from lines, shapes and rules. A cubist drawing starts from a real thing and keeps it in the picture.

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