By CraftingStepByStepPublished
Based on a video by Art Land.
This dreidel drawing lesson comes from Art Land, a YouTube channel that teaches drawing one easy object at a time. The whole dreidel is built with a black marker from a few slanted lines, then colored blue and yellow. It takes about five minutes. You end up with a 3D spinning top that looks ready to tip over on the table.
You need a black marker, a sheet of paper or cardstock, and colored pencils.
A dreidel is a four-sided spinning top played with at Hanukkah. Each side carries one Hebrew letter: nun, gimel, hei and shin. Together they stand for "a great miracle happened there." In Israel, pe replaces shin, so the phrase becomes "a great miracle happened here."
The game is played for gelt (chocolate coins) or small treats. Nun means you get nothing, gimel takes the whole pot, hei takes half, and shin means you put one in. On the dreidel in this video you can see two sides at once. The front face shows nun and the side face shows hei.
The cube is the one tricky part. Everything rests on three slanted lines that lean the same way. Keep them parallel, like rain falling at an angle. The middle line sits a little lower and runs a little longer, because it is the corner closest to you.
If your box looks flat, check the top. The two top edges should meet at the middle line in a shallow V. Practice the box once on scrap paper. After that the handle and tip go on fast.
Draw the dreidel big, about the size of your palm. Small hollow letters are hard to outline and even harder to color. Cardstock holds up better than printer paper if you plan to cut the dreidel out or press hard with colored pencils.
Blue and yellow is what the video uses, and it reads well from across a room. Blue and silver is the classic Hanukkah pair. Use a gray pencil for silver and leave a white strip down one edge for shine. For gold, layer yellow with a touch of orange, the same trick that makes the tip in the video glow. That gold also matches the gelt.
Color the two faces a shade apart, one lighter and one darker. It makes the cube pop. Our how to shade guide covers that in more detail.
New to drawing? How to draw covers the basic lines and shapes.
10 steps · about 5 minutes.Check off each step as you go and your progress saves automatically.
Start in the middle of your page. Draw a line that slants down and to the left. Leave some space and draw a second line next to it, a little longer and slanting the same way. Leave the same space again and draw a third line, a bit shorter than the middle one. These three lines become the edges of the dreidel's cube.
Tip
Keep all three lines leaning at the same angle. Parallel lines are what make the box look 3D.
Go to the top of the left line. Draw a short line across to the top of the middle line, slanting down a little. Then draw another short line from the top of the middle line to the top of the right line. You now have two top edges meeting at the middle line. It already looks like the corner of a box.
Tip
The middle line is the front corner, so it should sit a little lower than the other two.
Now do the same thing at the bottom. Draw a line from the bottom of the left line to the bottom of the middle line. Then draw one from the middle line to the bottom of the right line. Match the angle of the top edges. When you finish, you have a 3D box with two faces showing, tipped at an angle.
Tip
If the bottom lines run a different way than the top ones, the box will look twisted. Go slow here.
Find the top corner of the box near the middle line. Draw a short line straight up, angled the same way as the box. Draw a second line next to it, close together. Connect the two at the top with a small curve. That is the handle you twist to spin the dreidel. Keep it thin. A wide stem makes the top look heavy.
Tip
Start the stem in the middle of the top face, not on the edge.
From the bottom left corner of the box, draw a line down at an angle. From the bottom right corner, draw another line that angles in to meet it. They should come together in a point. That point is where the dreidel spins on the table. Add a small curved line from the middle corner down toward the point to show the rounded bottom.
Tip
Make the tip shorter than the box. A long tip looks like a pencil.
Now add the Hebrew letters. On the left face, draw the letter nun. It starts with a short stroke at the top, runs down, and turns out into a flat foot at the bottom. Draw it as one line first. Then go around it with a second line to make it a hollow letter you can color in later. Keep the letter centered on the face.
Tip
Tilt the letter to match the slant of the box so it looks painted on the side.
Move to the right face. Draw the letter hei: a bar across the top, a line down the right side, and a separate leg on the left that does not touch the top bar. Outline it the same way so it matches the hollow nun. Round off the corners. Your line drawing of a dreidel is done.
Tip
The side face is narrower, so make this letter a little thinner than the front one.
Pick up a blue colored pencil. Fill in both faces of the box, working carefully around the hollow letters. Leave the letters, the handle and the tip white for now. Press harder for a deep blue. If you want the cube to look more 3D, make one face a little darker than the other.
Tip
Color in small circles instead of back-and-forth strokes. The blue comes out smoother.
Switch to yellow. Fill in the nun and the hei so they stand out bright against the blue. Color the handle yellow too, and then the pointed tip, pressing a bit harder at the point. Yellow and blue is a strong pair, and it makes the letters easy to read even from across the room.
Tip
Color the letters before the tip so your hand does not smudge them.
Take an orange pencil and add a little shading along the edges of the yellow tip and the handle. Keep it light. This gives the yellow a warm gold look, like the gelt you play for. To finish, go back over the outline with your black marker so the edges are crisp. Your dreidel is ready to cut out or frame.
Tip
Shade the side away from your light source so the shading looks natural.
Keep going
How to Draw a Christmas Ornament
How to Draw a Dreidel
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