How to Draw Christmas Bells

Let’s start the Christmas bells drawing by sketching out the body of the first, front bell. Draw the first bell at an angle near the bottom of the page so you have a space for the second bell and some decorations on top.

Start with the bottom lip of the bell – this is just a squashed-down oval. Then, add the body of the bell. This is three-quarters of a rounded rectangle, with the lip of the bell acting as the last side. It’s a little narrower than the oval too. Later we will connect the two parts to finish the wider part of the bell.

Draw the second bell similar to the first bell, with the oval and the smaller-than-the-lip rectangle on top.

Unlike the front bell, where the mouth (the inside part of the bell) is visible, the back bell is turned away from us. Draw only a part of the oval to suggest that view. Also, leave out the top corner of the bell body to suggest that it is being hidden by the front bell.

Now it is time to connect the lip and the body to finish the bell shape.

The curved part – called the “sound bow”  – is drawn as a flat S-curve that connects the lip with a point about three-quarters of the way down the body of the bell.

Next, add two curved lines to the body of each bell. We’ll decorate these inscription bands (or in our case, decorative bands) in the next steps.

Start the first part of the inscription band decorations by drawing a series of rounded triangle shapes into the band we have drawn in the last step.

Next, draw the clapper, which is the part of the bell that actually makes it ring. Draw it as a circle hanging on a narrow rectangle stick for the front bell, where we can see the inside. For the back bell, all we can see is a half-circle.

Draw another set of the exact same triangle shapes, just phased out halfway in between the first line – an easy trick to make our inscription band decoration look a lot more intriguing.

Next, let’s decorate the bells with the typical Christmas symbol – holly berries and leaves. As we have already made a detailed “how to draw holly” tutorial, we will go fast here.

Draw three circles on top of the bells, making sure that one is in front and the hidden portions of the other circles are, well, hidden.

To add another piece of decoration to our bell, let’s draw a bow on top of the berries.

Again, we are going fast here, you can check the “how to draw a present” or “how to draw a candy cane” tutorials for the detailed steps on how to draw a nice ribbon bow.

For the middle of the bow, draw two long and skinny triangle shapes.  The knot would be hidden behind the berries. The ribbons are rectangle shapes widening out and closed off with V-shaped ends.

Let’s finish the Christmas bells decorations by adding the holly leaves. Spread out the leaves in different directions – left, right, and centre – and bend them upward or downward for some variety.

The leaves are drawn as a kite shape around the middle midrib line. Again, check out the full “how to draw a holly” tutorial for step by step detailed instructions.

Let’s start outlining the Christmas bells drawing. Start with the berries and clapper  – those are outlined straight from the sketch.

Let’s improve on the bow a bit. Round off the sharp corners and add a dip in the middle, to show where the ribbon is being pulled towards the knot. Add in two crease lines to further suggest the ribbon folds.

With all the front decorations drawn, we can outline the left bell now.

Again, simply follow the sketch, outlining only the outer bell shape lines and the bell lip – the bottom oval – where it is not hidden behind the clapper.

Now we can outline the ends of the bow. Asides from making the lines a cleaner, whole shape, we are simply following the sketch.

Next, outline the outside of the rear bell, as well as the clapper, just like in the previous step.

Finish the bells decorations by outlining the inscription band. Again, since we have already done the hard work drawing the tricky pattern, just follow the sketch. Remember how we split it into two easy and simple to draw parts?

Here we are using our knowledge from the “how to draw holly” tutorial to draw the jagged holly leaves and the V-shaped veins and midribs.

The final step in our how to draw Christmas bells tutorial is to add a few more details to show the depth in our drawing.

First, add small star-shaped dots for the calyx to each berry.

Then, add some fold lines to the ends of the ribbon just like with the ribbon bow.

Add lines along the sides, mouth, and clapper of the bells, following the curve of the lip and the inscription band to add a sense of depth.

Finally, add a few lines to the side of the front clapper to indicate that it is moving.

Here is the cleaned-up result of our how to draw Christmas bells tutorial – the line drawing once we have erased the sketch lines.

As you see, drawing the bells is pretty easy. It is the addition of the Christmas symbols – holly leaves and the bow – as decorations that turns “some bells” into a “Christmas bells” drawing.

The usual finishing touch is to colour in the Christmas bells. Christmas time has its traditional colours – gold, red and green – so let’s use those.

The bells are golden, or golden yellow. The holly berries and the bow are red – the berries are darker, and the bow is a bright red shade. To keep with the Christmas theme, the decorative pattern on the inscription belt also alternates between red and green.

Finally, notice the darker shading and the left out highlights on the bells and berries, to give them a round, 3D shape.

And that is it – you have learned how to draw Christmas bells!