How to Draw: 10 Easy Step-by-Step Pencil Tutorials

Every drawing below is photographed in four or five stages, so you can see the order the lines went down in. That is the useful part — a finished sketch tells you nothing about how it was built. Work through all ten and you pick up hat brims, three-quarter faces, perspective and graphite hair.

Note:
The drawings below are not owned by Pixelorbyt. They were carefully curated from the works of Lavi Arts. For more of his tutorials and incredible artwork, visit his Facebook profile or check out his YouTube channel at Drawing Class by Lavi Arts.

Another ten of his grids — a house, a cat in a cup and a baby elephant among them — are pulled apart panel by panel in these easy pencil drawings and sketches tutorials for beginners.

1. A Wide-Brimmed Hat That Hides the Eyes

Four-panel pencil tutorial of a wide-brimmed sun hat drawn over a girl's face, brim shading out her eyes

Check the last panel first: the brim cuts across at eyebrow height, so the eyes are never drawn — only the lips and jawline survive. The hardest part of a portrait has been designed out of this one.

Panel 1: Two lines. A shallow ellipse for the brim, a soft dome for the crown inside it.
Panel 2: A short curve under the brim for the chin. Keep it small — beginners draw the visible face far too tall.
Panel 3: Straight hair down both sides, then shoulders and a halter neckline. Nothing above the mouth.
Panel 4: Band around the crown, graphite under the brim, vertical strokes in the hair, flat mid-grey on top.

More faces framed by hats and hoods sit in these female character sketch ideas.

2. A Three-Quarter Face With a Tilt

Four steps building a tilted three-quarter face, from an egg-shaped head to shaded flowing hair

The head in panel 1 is a teardrop, not a circle — wide at the top, tapering to a chin set off to one side. That off-centre chin is the whole tilt; centre it and the face goes stiff.

Panel 1: Teardrop head, long neck line, a few spikes at the crown to fix the hairline.
Panel 2: Brows and closed almond eyes as thin arcs, both on the same tilted line, not a horizontal one.
Panel 3: Nose, full lips, shoulder line, hair sweeping past the collarbone in long unbroken strands.
Panel 4: Darkest values in the hair, mid-tones on lashes and brows, lightest touch on the lips.

If the mouth keeps flattening, drill it alone with these lips sketching references first.

3. A Back View With a Blunt Bob — the Line Stages

Five-panel tutorial of a girl seen from behind, blunt bob and camisole with a cardigan off the shoulders

Read the bottom row first. The construction is three flat shapes: a hood-shaped hair silhouette, a torso, then folded arms. No face, no foreshortening — the profile appears only once the mass is right.

Stage 1: One closed shape for the whole bob, flat across the bottom. Resist drawing a skull inside it.
Stage 2: Shoulders, the sweep of the upper arms, camisole straps crossing the bare back.
Stage 3: Turn the head left, set the profile against the hair edge, let the cardigan slip to the elbows.

Backs read more easily than faces and teach shoulder width fast; these human figure sketching references come next.

4. A Smartphone Back, Shaded Like Metal

Four steps drawing a smartphone back: rectangle, square camera bump, three lenses, then grey metallic shading

A phone is a ruler exercise in disguise: four straight edges, four matching corner radii, one raised square. Every wobble shows — you cannot hide a bad line in a flat grey object.

Panel 1: Tall rounded rectangle. Match all four corner curves before going further.
Panel 2: Camera module top-left, a rounded square about a quarter of the body’s width.
Panel 3: Three lenses inside it, logo centred on the body. Measure that centre, do not eyeball it.
Panel 4: Even mid-grey overall, near-black lens wells, a lighter band down one edge so the aluminium reflects.

That raised bump is your first solid sitting on a surface — push it further with these 3D sketching ideas.

5. A Beach Sunset From Horizon to Colour

Beach landscape in four steps, from horizon and mountain outline to a coloured sunset with palm trees

Panel 1 holds almost nothing: a horizon and one ridge. Depth comes from stacking, not perspective — mountain behind sun, sun behind palms, palms behind the shoreline.

Panel 1: Horizon, then the ridge. Keep the two peaks unequal or it reads as a symmetrical lump.
Panel 2: Sun circle overlapping the ridge, plus the curve where water meets sand.
Panel 3: Palms right, shrubs left, a few birds. Uneven spacing is what makes it look observed.
Panel 4: Red-to-yellow sky, blue mountain, turquoise water, gold sand. The sun stays untouched paper.

More of the same in these scenery drawing ideas.

6. A Staircase of Years in One-Point Perspective

Perspective staircase of blocks numbered 2022 to 2025 with a tiny figure standing on the tallest one

The only genuinely technical drawing here. Blocks marked 2022, 2023 and 2024 climb to a tall 2025 riser with a tiny figure on top, and the guide lines running off to the right do the work. Every top edge stays parallel — let one drift and the staircase collapses.

Stage 1: Draw the steps flat, as a ladder of parallelograms. No verticals yet.
Stage 2: Extrude each tread down with risers of equal width to turn the ladder into blocks.
Stage 3: Rule the guide lines out right and check every corner sits on one.
Stage 4: Number the faces, add the figure for scale, shade the side planes darker than the tops.

The figure is what sells the height. Once parallel lines behave, try these two-point perspective city drawings.

7. A Bird Built From Two Strokes

Bird tutorial in four steps: two curved strokes, outlined body, feet gripping a branch, then soft shading

Panel 1 is numbered for a reason: stroke ① is the back and tail, stroke ② the breast, and the sliver between them becomes the folded wing. Two lines and the bird already has posture.

Panel 1: The two curves. Pointed at the tail end, round at the breast.
Panel 2: Close the head, add a short conical beak, block in the stepped branch below.
Panel 3: Eye, wing edge, and feet with the toes wrapped over the branch — that grip is the detail people skip.
Panel 4: Soft graphite under the body, a black eye with the highlight left white, two leaves.

Perched songbirds are the easy end; these bird sketching ideas cover the harder species.

8. The Same Bob, This Time as a Rendering Study

The same back-view bob reference, finished graphite rendering beside its three lighter outline stages

Same grid as number 3, revisited on purpose — the outline stages and the finished panel are two different lessons. Ignore the pale blue panels and study the top-left drawing: the hair is not black, it is a dozen tonal bands from crown to blunt ends, with strips of white paper left where light catches.

Stroke the way the hair grows — curving over the skull, straightening as it falls.
Leave your highlights rather than lifting them later. Paper white beats an eraser mark.
Keep the skin almost untouched; that contrast is what makes the bob look glossy.
Darkest value goes underneath, where the hair meets the shoulder.

Several grids in these coolest drawing ideas tutorials give the whole final panel to shading.

9. A Circular Landscape Framed by a Brick Wall

Circular landscape in four steps: horizon, mountain ridge, rising sun and hatched water above a brick wall

The circle is a compositional cheat and a good one — it crops the scene for you, so you never decide where the drawing ends. Inside, everything is horizontal bands: brick, grass, water, ridge, sky.

Panel 1: Circle, horizon through the middle, a second line lower down for the top of the wall.
Panel 2: Ridge along the upper band, horizontal lines through the water band.
Panel 3: Sun rising half-hidden behind the ridge, slopes shaded, brickwork blocked in with staggered joints.
Panel 4: Birds, dense hatching on the water so it reads as reflection, grass tufts, mountains pushed nearly black.

Water is only close horizontal lines broken where light hits. For foliage, borrow shapes from these tree sketching references.

10. A Masked Profile With a Tear

Panel 1 is one continuous line — forehead, brow dip, nose, lip, chin. Get it wrong and no shading rescues the drawing, so redraw it until the nose-to-lip step feels right.

Panel 1: The profile contour alone. Nothing else on the page.
Panel 2: The mask as a soft block from the nose bridge to under the chin, plus jaw and neck behind.
Panel 3: Closed eye with heavy lashes, brow, fringe, ear loop, and a single tear tracking onto the mask.
Panel 4: Hair in dark directional strokes; keep the mask pale with only fold shadows so it stays the lightest thing there.

Holding the mask light against dark hair carries the mood. More grids in this register: quick and easy sketch tutorials by Lavi Arts.

How to Get the Most From a Four-Panel Grid

Copy the stages, not the finished piece. Draw panel 1 and stop. Compare, then move on.
Keep stage one faint. Press hard early and you will be erasing grooves later.
Fix proportion before detail. A perfectly shaded eye in the wrong place still looks wrong.
Shade in one direction. Pick a light source in panel 1 and hold it.

Ten more of his grids are broken down in this guide to creative sketch tutorials for aspiring artists. For a shorter session, these seven easy drawing ideas with step-by-step tutorials cover a saree braid and a snowy cabin, and these 10 simple drawing tutorials by Lavi Arts follow the same construction-first order.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which of these should a complete beginner start with?

Number 4, the smartphone — straight edges and flat tone, so you practise clean lines and even shading without touching anatomy. Then number 7, the bird: curves and light shading, still two strokes.

What pencils do these drawings need?

An HB for construction and a 2B or 4B for the final panel covers all ten. A 6B helps with the darkest hair bands in numbers 2, 8 and 10, and a blending stump smooths the phone and mask.

Why do numbers 3 and 8 use the same reference image?

Because that grid holds two lessons. Number 3 follows the outline stages in the lower panels, where the figure is three flat shapes. Number 8 studies the finished panel above it — all tonal bands and left-white highlights.

How long should each tutorial take?

Fifteen to forty minutes. The phone and bird sit at the short end; the shaded hair in numbers 2, 8 and 10 takes longest. Past an hour, you are detailing before the proportions are settled.

How to Draw: 10 Easy Step-by-Step Tutorials by Lavi Arts