Lesson 1 — Drawing with Simple Shapes

// every drawing starts with a shape

Before you can illustrate a Bible story, you need one foundational skill — the ability to see the world as simple shapes. Every person, animal, boat, and mountain you will ever draw is made of circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles combined.

Professional illustrators use this same technique. They do not start with detail. They start with shapes. The detail comes last.

🎨 The Core Idea

A person is an oval head on a rectangle body with cylinder arms and legs. A boat is a rectangle with a triangle sail. A mountain is a large triangle. A sun is a circle with lines. Once you can see shapes inside objects — you can draw anything.

// the six shapes you need

⭕

Circle

Heads · suns · eyes · wheels

⬜

Square

Buildings · windows · doors

🔺

Triangle

Mountains · sails · rooftops

▬

Rectangle

Bodies · boats · walls · trees

🥚

Oval

Faces · animals · clouds

〰️

Curved Line

Water · rainbows · smiles

// how to draw a person from shapes

Step 1 — Draw a circle for the head
Step 2 — Draw a rectangle below it for the body
Step 3 — Add two thin rectangles for arms
Step 4 — Add two rectangles for legs
Step 5 — Add a face — two dots for eyes, a curved line for a smile
Step 6 — Add hair, clothes, or a staff to make it a Bible character

// connecting art to the stories

In the next two lessons you will use these shapes to illustrate Noah's Ark and David and Goliath. Every element in those scenes — the ark, the animals, the giant, the shepherd boy — can be built from the shapes above.

The goal is not a perfect drawing. The goal is a readable story. If someone can look at your drawing and know what scene it shows — you have succeeded.

✏️ Try It Now

Grab any paper and pencil. Draw a person using only the steps above — circle, rectangle, rectangles for arms and legs, a face. Then add one detail that makes them look like a Bible character. A robe. A staff. A crown. Take 5 minutes. You just illustrated your first Bible character.