How To Draw A Lightbulb
Recently, I’ve been thinking about drawing something other than food or animals and then I had a lightbulb moment – why don’t I draw a lightbulb and share it on my blog! And so, here we are. This is my simple and effective guide on how to draw a lightbulb.
I’ve noticed that this is one of those objects that appears all over the artistic world. People use lightbulbs are icons, badges, logos and so forth.
You can find detailed paintings of them or simple and cute vectors all over the place. It’s the kind of drawing that I feel would be perfect for anyone who wants to hone their skills as a beginner.
So, without further ado, let’s get straight into lightbulb drawing.
Reference
If you’re a frequent visitor of my blog, you know that I advocate the use of reference images during those early days of learning how to draw.
If you line these reference images part by part, you’ll find that it becomes infinitely easier to draw even complex objects and subjects.

For this drawing tutorial, we’ll make use of this light bulb. Except, our drawing will be straight rather than slanted like in this image.
Steps For Drawing A Lightbulb
Step 1

Let’s begin this lightbulb drawing with the bulb itself. This is one of the easiest lines to start with as it’s just rounded and the largest portion of drawing in terms of width.
Step 2

For the first half of the bulb, you’re just following the line until you have what looks like a semi circle but as you get further down, you want to curve these lines inward.
In other words, your lines must narrow in like a balloon would.
Step 3

Extend both your lines straight down for a few cm and stop when they are parallel and inline with each other.
This completes the globe/bulb portion of our drawing.
Step 4

This is a screw-type globe so we’ll start drawing the fitting which has many layers or grooves to it. These look like rounded and imperfect rectangles.
The first rectangle that connects to the glove should be slightly thicker than the rest.
Every proceeding rectangle should have a sharper corner and be thinner. And they must not connect to the any corner of the larger rectangles.
Step 5

Draw about 3 – 4 of these sets until you fitting looks similar to mine.
Don’t add too many of these layers or else the proportions will be incorrect once you’re done.
Step 6

Now, let’s draw the last portion of the fitting which is the base. It curves downwards and is met by a horizontal line that curves back into the fitting.
Step 7

In this step, we’ll draw the first portion of the filament.
It appears like a rectangle that sits at the center of your bulb but it curves inwards and outwards towards the peak.
Step 8

Add a U-shaped line that connects to the filament and extends about halfway up the globe. This line does not have to be perfectly straight.
In fact, it’s better if you don’t make these two lines perfect.
Repeat the same thing inside the filament except make this line more wavy, knotted at one point and flimsy.
Final Drawing

Within the U-shaped upper line, I want you to draw two straight lines that end with small and short horizontal logs. This completes your lightbulb drawing and all that’s left is for you to color it in.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this article on how to draw a lightbulb. As you can tell, it’s actually really easy once you get a handle on how to draw lines that match a reference image.
Trust me when I tell you that this is only the beginning. Once the drawing bug bites, you’ll find it impossible to resist the urge to master this art form.
With that being said, feel free to check out some of my other drawing tutorials which I have linked down below.