Drawing a Bee

• 1
  bee bees apises beehive hive insect image by Pali A from Fotolia.com
  
  Decide if you want your honey bee to look realistic or cartoonish. The look you choose may depend on your audience. If you're doing a drawing for a child, you may want a sillier look. If the illustration is for a short story or scientific article, you will want the bee to look more life-like.
  
  
• 2). Find a photograph of a bee that you would like to draw, or, if possible, draw from life. If you have a dead bee available, examine it under a microscope and study the small details. A photograph is just fine if a real bee is unavailable.
  
  
• 3). Start with the basic shapes. Draw the outline of the bee, and omit anything unnecessary to the drawing. If the bee photograph includes a lot of extraneous visual information, like flowers and leaves, consider cropping it so only the bee is visible to reduce distractions.
  
  
• 4). Take note of where the brightest and darkest portions of the image are, and shade accordingly. Keep looking at your reference picture to make sure you get the shading correct.
  
  
• 5). Finish in the details, such as antennae and hairs on the leg. Take another look at your reference image to compare with your drawing and make sure you haven't missed anything important.
  
  

Drawing a Cartoon Bee

• 1). Start with an oval or egg shape for the body.
  
  
• 2). Add a circle for the head, with other smaller circles for the eyes. If you'd like, you can add a pattern to the eyes to mimic the facets of a real honey bee's eyes.
  
  
• 3). Draw two tear-drop shapes on top for the wings. Add branching lines to mimic the veins in the wing.
  
  
• 4). Draw a triangle jutting off the main oval for the stinger.
  
  
• 5). Draw three or six lines for the legs. Three will look more like a side view, while six might imply the bee is at a bit of an angle.
  
  
• 6). Give your bee some stripes. Now's the time to add color, if you'd like. Otherwise, feel free to leave your bee in black and white.