Spider Web Drawing

To tackle spider web drawing means you must be capable of drawing straight lines.

It's no fun if you use a ruler, that would present no challenge at all.

However, if you want to use a ruler, go ahead, there are no binding rules with our pencil drawing hobby.

If you love drawing cartoons, this corner web here would be just the thing to use in your cartoon drawings.

Before I started these drawings of spider webs, I remember thinking that this would be an excellent subject for beginners... Well, that was a wrong assumption!

A spider web isn't as easy to draw as it looks. However, once I got the hang of it, they turned out ok.

About Spiders

Spiders are small animals known as arachnids, they are not insects.

They have 8 legs and they spin silk.

We all relate spiders to the webs they create.

These webs are used to catch insects for food.

Not all spiders rely on their webs though. Some chase their prey and some lie in wait, then pounce.

The spider stuns or kills the prey with a poisonous bite. All spiders have poison, but not all spiders can hurt people with their bite.

About Spider Webs

Cobwebs are old webs covered in dust and dirt. That means that they are uninhabited.

I used to think that cobwebs and spiderwebs were the same thing. Luckily, we live and learn.

The silk of a web can't be dissolved in water. It is quite a tough little fibre.

Tip:   For the drawing on the right, I ended up turning the paper around and around. By doing that, I was able to keep the threads together neatly.

With more experience I shouldn't need to do this but, if it helped me, I figure it could help you to know this too.

Spiders leave a silk thread behind them wherever they go. This is called a dragline.

The spider uses the dragline to escape from enemies.

So, whenever you see a spider hanging down from his web, he must be feeling threatened by something. You, maybe?

Because there are at least 30,000 known types of spiders, they all spin different types of webs.

Some are quite messy looking.

I did try to draw one that is spun by a common house spider but it looked like a very poor attempt at a spider web drawing. I decided not to show you that one. (chicken!)

Getting Started

The drawings of spider webs that I did here are what we think a web generally looks like.

To draw the spider in the web, I decided to draw the spider first, seeing as though it is more detailed than the web itself.

Then I drew the web around the spider. I hope you get the idea.

I was quite surprised when I started the first spider web drawing, it turned out to be a real messy piece of work! You have to be careful the threads link up together neatly and spaced fairly accurately.

Some spiders take pride in their homes obviously.

If you are thinking of doing drawings of spider webs, take a look around outside to see if you can spot a good looking spider web. Do a quick, rough sketch outside then transfer it once you have a firm surface to draw on.

After a bit of practice, spider web drawings were quite easy.

This spider web drawing in a tree looks quite attractive, a bit like a sailboat.

The straighter kind of lines were probably the hardest part.

I cringed if I had to go over the lines because I didn't do them dark enough in the first place. You might be able to see where that has happened.

I hope you have fun with these spiderwebs!