In this drawing challenge, we’ll take a look at drawing a monkey, step by step.  This tutorial is fairly easy, since we’ll be breaking the steps down into simple shapes.  By layering the shapes, we can build up the overall form of the monkey gradually.  Then, the details can be added after we have a good understanding of the overall shape.

We’ll make this drawing a little more interesting by having our monkey swing from a branch.  We’ll draw the body at a slight diagonal in order to make him look like he’s in motion.

Step 1 – Draw Shapes for the Body

First, we’ll draw a couple of overlapping organic shapes for the body and the head of the monkey.  The head will be a simple circle, while the chest portion of the body will be somewhat of a curved rectangle.  In order to make the monkey look like it is in motion, we’ll draw it at a slight diagonal.

Step 2 – Draw Shapes for the Arms and Legs

Now that we have the body in place, we’ll draw shapes for the arms and the legs.  These shapes are simple ovals that will overlap slightly.  The left leg of the monkey is drawn protruding  towards the viewer.  Again, to make create the illusion of movement, the arms are drawn at a slight diagonal.

Step 3 – Draw the Hands, Feet, Branch, and Other Details

Now, we’ll draw the shapes and lines for the hands, fingers and the feet.  We’ll also add lines for the branch that the monkey is swinging from.  We’ll extend the shape that was drawn for the face and add lines to determine the locations of the facial features.  A line is also drawn for the ear.

Step 4 –  Draw the Facial Features

Now that we have a good understanding of the overall shape of the monkey, we can start to focus on a few of the details.  Using the lines that we drew in the last step for the locations of the facial features, we can start to add them to the drawing.  We can also add a bit more definition to the fingers and the toes of the monkey.

Step 5 – Finish the Drawing

Using all of the lines that have been drawn to this point, we can complete the drawing by refining the detail further with our final medium.  This may be ink or soft graphite.  Go over the lines, making them darker.  You can also add details such as texture on the branch, fur on the body of the monkey, and a bit of shading under the leg.