How to Draw Venus

1. Begin the Venus outline by drawing a large circle. This forms the basic shape of the planet. Then, draw a wavy line across it. This indicates the clouds and atmosphere of the planet.

2. Skip a space, then continue the wavy line, tracing a band of clouds swirling across the planet's surface.

3. Draw another long, wavy line below the first.

4. Draw more wavy lines, some between the first two.

5. Enclose irregular shapes within the band of clouds.

6. Draw another band of clouds near the northern pole of the planet, again using wavy curved lines.

7. Use curved lines to enclose more irregular shapes near the top of the planet.

8. Next, enclose cloud cover near Venus' southern pole. Use curved lines that occasionally meet at sharp points.

9. Complete your Venus outline by enclosing a few more irregular rounded shapes between its bands of clouds.

Your sketch of Venus is now complete. Color your drawing. We've shaded ours realistically in various orange and yellow hues, ranging from yellow-orange to red-orange.

If the brown and orange hues of Venus remind you of a desert, it is with good reason. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "Venus is extremely hot, dry, and in other ways so forbidding." It is covered in a layer of clouds 42 miles thick.

These clouds reflect about 85 percent of the sunlight that strikes the planet, but the airborne material responsible for the orange or yellow color has not yet been identified.