How to Draw a Croissant Step by Step

by easylinedrawing

This guide shows how to draw a croissant in four steps. It provides an easy to follow breakdown of the drawing process using illustrated examples and quick instructions.

The croissant in the example is drawn from 3/4 view which is a fairly natural angle to be looking at one from. The tutorial starts by showing how to create an outline of it’s main shape. It then shows how to add some smaller details of along it’s surface. Afterwards, it demonstrate how to apply some very basic color and shading.

You can see a preview of the main stages of the step by step illustration above, but, there is a more detailed breakdown of creating the outline drawing shown below.

If you are going to follow along using pencil and paper it’s recommended that you start with light lines to make it easier to correct any potential mistakes (you can darken them later on). However, overall the guide is created in a way where it does not necessarily require you to do any erasing.

Step 1 – Outline the Croissant’s Main Shape

Different kinds of croissants can have different shapes. For more “classic” croissants the way in which the dough is rolled makes it look like the pastry is made up of several sections. Draw these starting with the large one in the middle and then gradually add the remaining sections one side at a time going from largest to smallest. You can see this in the above illustration.

As the croissant is drawn from 3/4 view start by adding the sections facing towards the viewer. Once you have these outlined, draw the sections facing towards the background. To account for perspective, make the background facing section smaller and narrower in comparison.

Perspective is simply objects appearing smaller as they go off into the distance. Accurately showing this in your drawing will help to give it some depth.

Step 2 – Draw the Small Cracks & Folds Along it’s Surface

Once you have the main shape of the croissant outlined draw some small cracks and folds running along it’s surface (these are generally created as the dough bakes).

Draw the cracks/folds as curves of various length that wrap around the shape of the croissant. This will both make the drawing look more interesting and help give it a more three dimensional appearance.

Step 3 – Color the Croissant

Croissants tend to be a golden color. You can create this by mixing a bit of brown and orange into yellow. An easy way to do this is either by using water based paints or applying the colors in several layers with colored pencils.

Step 4 – Apply Some Basic Shading to the Croissant’s Bottom

Finally, to finish the drawing add some very basic shading. Apply this around the bottom of the croissant as well as in between the sections of the half facing towards the viewer.

Shadows are created depending on the lighting conditions surrounding an object. For a simple drawing like this you can use fairly generic shading where the shadows are simply placed in areas they are likely to occur. As light usually comes from above it’s natural to have a shadow along the croissants bottom. The ares in between the croissants sections are also fairly closed off as compared to the rest of it’s surface so less light will tend to reach there. For this reason you can add shadow around those areas as well.

To make the shading process even simpler you can add the shadows without any gradients (as in the example). Simply have hard transitions between the light and dark ares of the croissant.

An easy way to add the shadows is by applying some brown over top of the “golden” color from the previous step.

Conclusion

This guide shows an easy way to draw a classic looking croissant. It does so by first explaining how to construct it’s main shape. It then shows how to add the smaller details along the croissant’s surface and finally how to apply some simple color and shading. If you follow the steps carefully the result can be a nice looking drawing that is easily recognizable as a croissant.

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