How to Draw a Chair? Helpful Tips and Resources

The Ultimate List of Resources for How to Draw a Chair with Pencil, Pen, Colored Pencil, Art Markers, Watercolor, Acrylic Painting, Oil Painting and more!

Want to know how to draw a chair? We found the best online resources based on your choice of medium. We included step-by-step guides and videos that we felt were particularly helpful. Bookmark, pin, share or save for later!

If you want to learn how to draw a chair, you should first recognize each of its elements.

A chair is composed of a seat, back and support. Understanding these basic elements will allow you to decide what you might want to embellish or omit.

Before we get to the list of resources, we listed the elements to consider when drawing. See how creative you can get!

FUN FACT: Chairs weren’t common until the 16th century. Before chairs, people were using chests, benches and stools for seating.

In ancient Egypt, chairs were much lower than the ones we have now –sometimes as low as 25 cm off the ground! The more you know!

Anatomy of a chair: ELEMENTS TO CONSIDER when drawing

Seat

The seat is where you sit. Without a seat, there would be no chair! Three factors of the seat to consider are the shape, cushion and arm rest.

Shape – Although generally flat for ease and comfort for sitting, seats can vary in the shape of the flat surface. Is it circular? Is it square?

Cushion – Does your seat have a cushion? How thick is it?

Arm Rest – Arm rests are an upright piece of the chair that supports your elbows and forearm. Does your chair have arm rests?

Back

The seat is where you sit. Without a seat, there would be no chair! Three factors of the seat to consider are the shape, cushion and arm rest.

Height – How high is the back of the chair?

Shape – What shape is the back of your chair?

Stile – Stiles are the outside vertical frames of the chair’s back. Does your chair have these?

Rail – Rails refer to the horizontal bars on the chair’s back. Rails can be located at the top, middle or bottom of the back of the chair.

Spindle – Spindles refer to the vertical shafts of the back that don’t necessarily make up the chair’s frame. Spindles are typically cylindrical and symmetrical in nature.

Ear – The ear is located on the top of the stile and is typically decorative. Does your chair have ears? What shape are they?

Learning How To Draw

Support

These typically come in the form of legs that hold the chair up off the ground. Chairs without legs do exist. Zaisu chairs are very common in Japan!

Legs – How many legs does your chair have? Maybe 1 leg or 31 legs? What shape are they?

Apron – The apron is a panel connecting the chair’s surface to the legs. It is placed at a right angle underneath the surface of the chair and typically extends over the top of the legs. An apron can be purely decorative or provide support to the structure.

Stretcher – The stretcher is a horizontal support element between the legs. Does your chair have these? How many? Do they have a similar or different shape compared to the legs?

Foot – The foot is the bottom of the leg. Does your chair’s leg have distinctive feet? What about wheels like in an office chair?

Material

Chairs can be made of any material as long as it can provide support. They can even be made of the craziest material you can think of, even real sardines!

Chairs can also be upholstered from different fabrics as well. Depending on the type of drawing you want to achieve, the material and fabric of the chair may be a factor in terms of lighting and texture.

Embellishments

There’s a lot of room for creativity in drawing a chair. Not only can you be creative in its design, you can also be creative in its embellishment as well.

These can be applied to any part of the chair. Check out this post on BoredPanda for 20 creative and crazy chair designs for some inspiration!

Ultimate List Of Resources and Tutorials for How To Draw a Chair

PENCIL & PEN

ONLINE GUIDES

1. How to Draw a Chair (eHow) – Includes animated gifs for step-by-step instruction [Easy]2. How to Draw a Chair (HowtoDrawDat) – Includes a video demonstration [Moderate]3. How to Draw a Chair (DeviantArt) – Drawing chairs in 3 different perspectives [Hard]

VIDEOS

4. How to Draw a Chair (HowtoDrawDat) – An animated demo without audio instruction
5. How to Draw a Chair (EasyThingstoDraw101) – A video on drawing a simple cartoon chair
6. How to Draw a Chair in Perspective (Creosfera) – Uses perspective to help draw a chair
7. How to Draw a Director’s Chair (DrawStuffRealEasy) – A demo drawing a director’s chair
8. How to Draw a Dining Room Chair (Shoo Rayner) – Uses pencils & wash technique

COLORED PENCILS & MARKERS

VIDEOS

9. How to Draw a Brown Office Chair (Peili Wang) – A colored pencil + marker time lapse
10. How to Draw a Black Leather Chair (Peili Wang) – A colored pencil + marker time-lapse
11. How to Draw a Leather Chair (Shoo Rayner) – A tutorial with colored pencil
12. How to Draw an Egg Chair (ArtDIYCreator) – A tutorial with art markers and colored pencils
13. How to Color a Chair (D Greenwood) – A quick tutorial using art markers
14. How to Color a Wooden Chair (WCCVISSCOM) – A Copic marker tutorial

WATERCOLOR

VIDEOS

15. How to Paint a Chair with Watercolor (Art Impression Stamps) – Painting a chair (17:56)
16. How to Paint Living Room Chairs (Peili Wang) – A watercolor time-lapse of a living room (3:59)