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Lesson Details

Step 1 – Drawing A Regular Hexagon

The first step to drawing an impossible hexagon is to draw a regular hexagon. Here’s a very easy way to draw a perfect hexagon.

Mark a dot in the middle of your paper. This will be the center of your impossible hexagon.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 1

Use a compass to draw a circle around this dot. The six points of our hexagon will evenly spaced along this circle.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 2

To find the first two points, simply draw a horizontal line through the center dot to the circle. Mark the two points of contact between the line and the circle.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 3

Now let’s find the other 4 points. Set your compass to the same width as the radius of the circle.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 4

Then pivot off one of the points and mark the two intersection between the compass and the circle.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 5

Repeat this for the other side.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 6

These intersections are the 4 remaining points of our hexagon.

Now just connect these points to form the shape.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 7

Next, let’s draw a smaller hexagon inside this one. To do this, simply draw all the sides of the big hexagon again, except move them inward so that they form a new hexagon.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 8

Be sure to keep the spacing between the lines uniform through out.

Ok, so there’s our medium hexagon.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 9

Now let’s repeat the process and draw yet another hexagon inside this one.

Just to make it interesting, I’ll make the spacing a bit bigger this time, so I’ll use the width of my ruler to measure things out.

And there’s the small hexagon.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 10

Step 2 – Inking The Impossible Hexagon

Next, let’s ink in the large and small hexagon, because we know for sure these are the lines we want to keep.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 11

Now let’s ink in the rest of the drawing. There’s a lot of lines here so it can get a bit confusing.

The best way to think about this is to imagine that you are trying to get from the large hexagon to the small hexagon, using these roads.

Here’s what I mean…

Let’s start with this corner.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 12

Here you have your choice of two roads.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 13

For the first one, it doesn’t matter which one you pick. So let’s just go with this one.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 14

Follow this road down until you reach the far edge of the small hexagon.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 15

Then make a turn to connect to it. And that’s it.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 16

Now let’s do this corner.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 17

Again, we have a choice of two roads.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 18

But since this one is already taken…

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 19

…we’ll have to use this one.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 20

Once again, follow this road down until you get to the far edge of the small hexagon.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 21

And then make a turn to connect to it.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 22

Now let’s repeat this process for the other four corners.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 23

Once you’re done, just erase the pencil guidelines to reveal our impossible hexagon.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 24

Step 3 – Shading

Then I’ll use a 2B & 4B pencil to add a gradation at the 6 inner corners of the shape.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 25

And I’ll also add a gradation at the 6 outer corners as well.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 26

And lastly, I’ll use a 4B pencil to add a hard shadow under these lines, in order to create the illusion that the parts are overlapping each other.

Impossible Hexagon Drawing 27

And we’re all done!