How to Draw a Hurdle | Easy Drawing Tutorial

A hurdle is a barrier that athletes must jump over during track and field events while maintaining their momentum to reach the finish line in the shortest amount of time possible.

Made of metal or wood, it comes in various heights depending on the competition level. The 2024 Summer Olympics, with arguably the most prestigious athletic division, will include hurdling for athletes – ranging from a 110 meter race for men and a 100 meter race for women!

In today’s tutorial, you will learn how to draw a three-dimensional hurdle in 5 easy steps.

What You Will Need

• A piece of drawing paper
• Pencils (2b, 3b or 5b)
• An eraser
• A ruler
• Color pencils or markers
• 20-25 minutes

How to Draw a Hurdle

Drawing a hurdle may seem challenging at first glance, but it’s absolutely achievable with some time, patience and practice. Make sure you have all of your drawing tools ready, and thoroughly check out the outline of all the steps you will be doing before you start. Whenever you’re ready, jump right in.

Step 1: Draw the Crossbar

The crossbar is usually made of thin metal or wood and is placed at a certain height above the ground.

Before you begin with this step, visualize where you want your hurdle to be on your page, and then begin drawing your crossbar on a spot that suits.

First, using your ruler, draw a long horizontal line that’s slightly tilted upward at the end. Then, draw another horizontal line with your ruler beneath it with some space in between. Finally, draw two vertical lines on the left, and one vertical line on the right to connect your horizontal lines together.

• Tilt both your horizontal lines up a little bit on the side so they’re diagonal
• Make the space in the middle as even as possible.
• Draw two vertical lines on the left side of the rectangular shape

Step 2: Draw the Side Bars

The side bars of a hurdle are the upright posts that support the crossbar. They provide stability and structure to the hurdle so that it remains in place during track competitions.

First, start by drawing one long semi-circle against the left and another against the right ends of your crossbar. Then, starting from the end your semi-circles (horizontal lines) draw long vertical rectangles running downward.

The width of your rectangles should be slightly thinner than that of your semi-circles and end them off with horizontal lines.

Finally, draw a set of thinner vertical rectangles beneath the slightly widers ones.

• Make sure the side bar on the left is slightly longer than the one on the right.
• Ensure that what you draw on the right matches what you draw on the left.
• Use your ruler and make corrections using your eraser if necessary

Step 3: Draw the Holding Stand

First, beginning at the end of your side bars, draw lines around them that represent a square. Try and make it look as though the side bars are entering those squares.

Next, from the corners of your squares, draw a small vertical rectangle on the outer side, and then a small vertical square on the side that faces upfront (you, viewer, etc).

The squares facing you should have a curve within their width, and then another square beneath that curve. Do this on the bottom of both the left and right side bar.

Next, in alignment with your top bar, draw a slightly diagonal rectangle from the left square shape you just drew to the right one. Add a diagonal line within your diagonal rectangle.

For this next part, we find it’s easier to complete it when starting from the left and bottom. First, draw a slightly diagonal line that’s not too long.

Draw another diagonal line, following the same length, above the first. Add a vertical line at the end to connect both lines together.

Then, draw another diagonal line slightly next to the last one you drew. Connect this line with your previous one by drawing a right diagonal line.

Finally, next to that line – with a bit more space in between them – draw a diagonal line that’s roughly the same length as the one you just finished. Connect the ends with a small little horizontal line.

• Follow the same steps completed on the left, on the right side of the hurdle

Congratulations! Your hurdle Drawing Is complete

Take a little break and give yourself a nice pat on the back for going from nothing to something. Once you’re ready, give your drawing a proper inspection to make sure everything looks as you want it to.

If you prefer, you can compare your drawing with the one we have done to analyze if there are any changes that need to be made.

Taking your Drawing to the Next Level

While your drawing is technically complete, there are still ways to improve and make it even more better. Push yourself even further by taking your drawing to the next level and adding in your own personalized touches.

step 4: adding a Background

With any form of art, whether it’s a book, a movie or a drawing, a background takes a simple idea and transforms it into a story.

For a hurdle drawing, there are a few background ideas to play around with. Is your hurdle standing on a race track, about to be used in a track and field competition? If so, add a field and track in your background. Go big and even add the Olympic Rings to showcase that your hurdling event is top class.

step 5: adding color

With this step, you can let your personality shine through by adding whatever colors you prefer. In reality, hurdles all look different, so you have the opportunity to make full use of your artistic license and be bold.

Just make sure your colors differ for different parts; like the crossbar, the side bars, and the holding stand. This will highlight and compliment each part.

If you like the way we’ve decided to color in ours, go ahead and choose similar colors. Blue for the top bar, orange for the semi-circles, yellow for the side bars, and gray for the holding bar. Notice how the different colors make each part stand out.

Bonus Tips

Add some shadows to your drawing by lightly shading along the right side.

You can also lightly shade a figure behind your hurdle to make it seem as though an athlete is closing in and about to jump.

Do some research on hurdling or other athletic events for more inspiration.

Add distinctive features of a hurdle, such as two squares within the top bar or some writing within the top bar, either detailing the event or your name for a nice personalized touch.

Check out some sport inspired drawing tutorials for background ideas or inspiration for your next drawing.

Conclusion

If you’ve followed all the steps and made it this far, congratulations. Job well done!

You have read and hopefully learnt so much from today’s tutorial; like what hurdles are used for, how they are used, how to draw one, and some interesting facts about the 2024 Summer Olympics hurdling event coming up.

Improvement takes time and practice. So be proud of yourself for completing this lesson, and remember, you can only get better from here! See you in the next tutorial.

Thanks for reading & feel free to check out more of our articles!