10 Simple Drawing Tutorials for Beginners, Step by Step

Ten drawings, four steps each. Every one opens with a shape you could put down in ten seconds — a curve, an oval, a box. The skill is knowing which goes first.

Each names the specific thing it teaches, so pick by weakness rather than mood. After these, the ten sketch tutorials in this companion set use the identical four-panel format.

If the four-panel format suits how you learn, these easy pencil drawing tutorials for beginners apply it to ten more subjects, from a two-box house to a half-hidden portrait.

Ten further subjects broken down in the same construction-first order are collected in these easy how-to-draw tutorials by Lavi Arts.

When you have finished these ten, a longer run of 23 easy step-by-step art projects works through the same four-panel format, from an angelfish built out of a number 3 up to a seated guitar player.

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

1. The Sun Hat Portrait

Four-step pencil tutorial: floppy sun hat outline, then a girl whose eyes stay hidden under the brim

The hat comes first and the face second, so the brim hides her eyes and the hardest part of a portrait never arrives.

Step 1: Shallow dome for the crown, brim waving out in one unbroken line.
Step 2: Band and bow, set off to one side rather than centred.
Step 3: Nose, lips and chin under the brim’s shadow. Set the mouth low.
Step 4: Darken the brim’s underside, then add hair and the scalloped neckline.

Keep the outer brim crisp and the shading beneath soft. That contrast sits the hat on her head rather than in front of it.

2. The Girl with a Camera

Step-by-step sketch of a girl seen from behind, ribbon in her hair, raising a small camera to shoot

Seen from behind under a curtain of hair, there is no face to solve. The raised arm carries the drawing.

Step 1: Hair mass alone, ribbon at the crown. Its width sets the figure’s.
Step 2: Near arm out from the hair, camera level with her head.
Step 3: Cropped top, belt, jeans. The horizontal belt says she stands square.
Step 4: Shade the hair full-length, leaving a pale band down the middle.

The camera comes up in front of her face, so the forearm points inward. Try these photography-inspired sketch ideas next.

3. The Layered Gown

Four stages of a tiered ball gown, scalloped hem outline to shaded bodice above a polka-dot skirt

Three tiers, each wider than the last. The drawing lives or dies on whether they look stacked or striped.

Step 1: A broad bell with a scalloped hem, scallop widths varied.
Step 2: Two more scalloped lines across it, each curving downward at the sides.
Step 3: Square-necked bodice and straps, waist far narrower than feels correct.
Step 4: Bodice filled solid black, tiers dotted, a tight bun at the crown.

Each hem must overlap and shadow the tier below, or you have a striped cone. These wedding dress drawing ideas go further.

4. The Traditional Saree

Back view saree tutorial ending in a pink polka-dot drape held out beside a black blouse

A saree is one unbroken length of cloth, so it must read as continuous from shoulder to floor.

Step 1: The head from behind — an oval, the faintest hint of shoulder.
Step 2: Blouse back, then one long diagonal across the body: that pallu governs everything.
Step 3: Drape run to the floor, one edge pulled sideways where her hand holds it.
Step 4: Saree coloured pink, blouse filled dark against it.

Even dots flatten the cloth; crowd them near each fold and it curves. Material changes everything, as this guide to drawing fabric texture shows.

5. The Curious Panda

Panda peeking around bamboo stalks, built from bare stalks to solid black ear patches and eye rings

Drawn backwards on purpose: bamboo first, so the stalks crop him and you never draw a whole bear.

Step 1: Two or three vertical stalks, segment lines unevenly spaced.
Step 2: His head curving out from behind the right stalk, ear blocked solid black.
Step 3: Eye patches as tilted ovals — inward reads curious, outward reads sleepy.
Step 4: Muzzle, the paw gripping the stalk, then the remaining blacks flooded in.

Keep the blacks flat, no pencil texture showing — a panda is a graphic problem, not a fur problem. More in these easy cute animal drawing ideas.

6. The Contemplative Figure

Seated girl drawn in four steps, head down on her knees, hoodie sleeve and white skirt with sneakers

She sits with knees up, head down on them. One decision solves the proportions: the head touches the knees from the first line.

Step 1: That odd kidney shape is the hair, seen from above and tipped forward.
Step 2: Hoodie sleeve out from under the hair, hands loosely together beyond it.
Step 3: Skirt hem, bent legs beneath, sneakers flat on the ground line.
Step 4: Sleeve shaded along the arm’s curve; hair dark at the roots, pale at the ends.

Mood comes from the tilt, not the shading: drop the head a few degrees and it reads as grief. This poses drawing reference covers more.

7. The Best Friends Mug

Two mugs with heart-shaped handles, the upper one tilted, lettered Best and Friends in the final panel

One mug balanced at an angle on the rim of another. It looks like a doodle; it is a perspective exercise.

Step 1: The lower mug as a rounded box, its opening a shallow ellipse.
Step 2: Heart handle, point outward, joined to the body at two places.
Step 3: Second mug tilted on top, its ellipse rotated to match its own angle.
Step 4: Best and Friends lettered across, the text curving with the surface.

Reusing the first ellipse collapses the stack. Shade the tipped mug’s interior darkest — that pocket makes two outlines into objects.

8. The Red Dress

Off-shoulder ruffle top and pencil skirt drawn from behind, finished in bright red beneath a dark bob

Bobbed hair, an off-shoulder ruffle, a fitted skirt, then flat red that does more than pencil work would.

Step 1: Head and shoulders only, the bob one solid mass tucking under the jaw.
Step 2: Ruffle wrapped around the arms, its top edge crossing below the shoulder line.
Step 3: Skirt tapered at the knee, hip line wider than the shoulders.
Step 4: Red laid in flat, darkened only along the folds.

Set that ruffle edge too high and the top reads as a collar. More garments to copy in these outfit drawing ideas.

9. The Elegant Ponytail

Very long ponytail sketched from behind, finished with a shaded flared skirt and off-shoulder top

The ponytail runs nearly the full height of the figure. Hesitate anywhere along it and the wobble shows.

Step 1: Ponytail before the body — narrow, tapering, widest a third of the way down.
Step 2: Head, then shoulders and arms either side of the hair.
Step 3: Skirt flared, hem lifting unevenly as if she has just turned.
Step 4: Strokes running its entire length, one highlight strip left unbroken.

Hair reads through stroke length, not count: ten long lines beat two hundred nervous ones. More figures in these female character sketch ideas.

10. The Baby Elephant

Baby elephant built from a single trunk curve, then ear, body and legs standing on shaded grass

The whole animal grows from a single S-curve — one line deciding an entire drawing.

Step 1: That S: up the curled trunk tip, over the forehead, into the cheek.
Step 2: Head closed, eye set high near the trunk, mouth ticked upward.
Step 3: Rounded ear overlapping the head, then back, belly and four stumpy legs.
Step 4: Ear’s inner edge shaded, trunk wrinkled, grass scratched in underfoot.

Baby proportions mean short limbs and a big head. Keep the wrinkles following the trunk’s curve or it becomes a hose.

Tips That Actually Change the Drawing

Draw the biggest shape first. The hat, the hair mass, the bamboo — step one is always the largest form, and it sets the scale.
Commit to long strokes. Hair and drapes are single gestures. Draw from the elbow, not the fingers.
Put in one real dark early. It gives you a value to judge every other tone against.
Redraw it three days later. The first copy teaches your eye, the second teaches your hand.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which of these should a complete beginner draw first?

The baby elephant or the best friends mug. Both are built from shapes you can check against each other, so when something looks wrong you can find out why. Figures hide their errors in proportion.

Do I need special pencils or paper?

No. An HB and a 4B on printer paper cover all ten — HB for the construction lines in step one, 4B for the dark fills in step four. A kneaded eraser matters more than an expensive set, since these depend on lifting early lines cleanly.

Why do so many of these figures face away from the viewer?

Because it removes the face. Facial proportion is where beginners lose confidence fastest, and a back view still trains posture, folds and hair. Turn the figure round once the body underneath is reliable.

My drawing looks fine until I shade it, then it goes muddy. Why?

You are shading everything to a middle grey. Commit to the darkest spot, leave the lightest areas as bare paper, then fill the range between. Muddiness is a missing dark and a missing white, not bad technique.

Start With One

Pick whichever image you scrolled back to and copy it four times — the same one, not four different tutorials. The first attempt shows you where the shapes go; the fourth is usually the one worth keeping.