37 Sketching Ideas for Kids With Pencil References to Copy
Kids do not stall because they lack imagination. They stall because a blank page gives them nothing to grab. Every idea below fixes that: it names one thing to draw, tells them which shape goes down first, and points out the one part that usually goes wrong. Work through them in order or let a child flick through the pictures and pick whatever looks fun that afternoon.
Nothing here needs special supplies. A regular HB pencil, an eraser and printer paper will carry a child through the whole list, and about a third of these can be finished in ten minutes. If your child is very young or brand new to drawing, start in the emoji and cartoon face section and only move to the portraits once they are comfortable putting lines down without rubbing them out. For a gentler on-ramp, our easy drawing ideas for kids of all ages sorts subjects by age rather than by subject.
For days when the pencil case stays shut, these 30 chalk sketch ideas cover the same kind of subjects on a driveway or a chalkboard, at a scale kids can draw with their whole arm.
For a version of this list built around eleven specific subjects, each with the shape to block in first, see these sketching ideas for kids. Kids who want a clear starting stroke rather than a blank page will also get on well with our easy drawing tutorial for kids, where every animal begins as a number.
Faces and Expressions to Sketch
Faces are where most kids want to start, and they are also where most kids get discouraged. The trick is to climb the ladder rather than jump to the top of it. These thirteen run from a circle with a mouth in it up to a shaded portrait, each rung adding one new thing to think about.
1. Laughing Emoji Face
Start here with the youngest kids. One circle, two curved lines for the squeezed-shut eyes, and a big open mouth shaded dark on the inside. The whole face reads as laughter because the eyes curve upward — flip those curves the other way and the same drawing turns sad. That single swap is a useful thing for a child to discover on their own, so let them try both.
2. Heart-Eyed Emoji
Same circle, new problem: two hearts that have to match. Draw one, then hold the pencil above the paper to check the second starts at the same height. Symmetry is far easier to practise on a heart than on a nose.
3. Simple Cartoon Boy Sitting Down
A whole character built from ovals, with shoes drawn as flattened rectangles. Sitting him down quietly solves the hardest problem in figure drawing — nobody has to work out how a standing figure stays upright. Bend the knees forward and it works.
4. Anime Girl With a Bob Haircut
The eyes are the whole style here. They sit low on the face, take up about a third of its width, and each one keeps a small white dot left un-shaded so it looks wet. Kids skip that white dot and wonder why the eyes look flat. Drawing on graph paper, as here, helps keep the pair level. Our collection of cartoon characters with big eyes has more variations of the same eye shape to copy.
5. Goofy Grinning Face
Permission to be sloppy. The eyes are different sizes on purpose, the grin runs wider than the jaw, and one lonely curl sticks up off the top. The mistakes are the character — a wobbly line here improves the drawing.
6. Shocked Cartoon Face
Three ovals: two enormous eyes and a tall open mouth. Push the eyebrows high up the forehead and leave plenty of space between brow and eye — that gap is what sells surprise. Kids draw the brows too close.
7. Scribbly Wild-Eyed Character
Drawn fast, on purpose. Lines are looped over each other again and again rather than drawn once and corrected. Set a two-minute timer and ban the eraser — it breaks the habit of fussing over one line.
8. Minimalist Line Portrait
Head tipped back, eyes closed, and almost nothing else — no shading, no hair detail, just a jaw and a neck line. The difficulty is restraint: every line has to be right first time because there are so few of them.
9. Closed-Eyes Portrait With a Braid
Closed eyes are easier than open ones, which makes this a good first realistic face — the lids are single curved lines with lashes hanging below. Spend the saved effort on the braid: overlapping teardrops running down, not parallel lines.
10. Freckled Face With Big Lashes
Freckles are the lesson. They cluster over the bridge of the nose and thin out across the cheeks, and they go on after the shading. Vary the size — perfectly even dots look like a rash.
11. Smiling Baby Portrait
Baby proportions break every rule kids have learned. The eyes sit below the halfway line of the head, the forehead is huge and the cheeks push out past the skull. If the face looks like a small adult, the eyes are too high.
12. Realistic Portrait of a Young Woman
Block in the whole head lightly, then find the three darkest areas — under the nose, under the bottom lip, one side of the neck — and build them up in layers. Hair is drawn as clumps, never strands; this one has maybe eight in it.
13. Bearded Man With Cross-Hatching
An older face gives kids more to hold onto: the brow ridge, the cheekbone, the line where the beard starts. Cross-hatching is more forgiving than smooth blending — a wrong stroke just disappears under the next layer.
Characters, Poses and Movement
Once a face works, kids want the body attached to it doing something. These seven build from a jumping stick figure to a rendered standing adult, and every one is really an exercise in balance.
14. Boy Running Through Flying Cubes
The run works because he leans forward past his own feet — an upright figure never looks like it is moving. Draw the lean first as one tilted line, then hang the limbs off it in opposite pairs: left arm forward, right leg forward.
15. Jumping Kid With Arms Up
Both arms overhead, hair flying up, nothing touching the ground. That gap under the feet is what makes the jump read, and kids instinctively plant the feet on a line and lose it. Decide where the ground would be, then draw well above it.
16. Child in a Giant Pompom Hat
Character design through clothing: the hat is bigger than the head, the coat swallows the arms, striped socks poke out below. Scribble the pompom in circles rather than outlining it — texture comes from the direction of the strokes.
17. Two Bean-Shaped Characters
About as simple as a character gets: a tall rounded blob, two stick legs, two dots and a smile — perfect for a child who insists they cannot draw. Make the two different heights so they read as a pair rather than a copy.
18. Two Goofy Long-Necked Dogs
Stretched-out animals are a fast way into exaggeration: necks far too long, eyes far too big, bodies drawn as furry scribble. Ask your child which dog is the nervous one — the instant answer shows how much eye placement carries.
19. Confident Man in a Suit
A standing adult, roughly seven heads tall. The weight sits on one leg, which drops one hip and raises the opposite shoulder — that tilt is the difference between a person and a plank. Folds only appear where fabric bends.
20. Superhero With Glasses and a Moustache
A muscular hero in a chest-out stance with a cape sweeping behind him. The joke is the glasses and moustache on a classic hero body, and the detail worth pointing out is that the chest emblem curves with the ribcage rather than sitting flat like a sticker. Draw the cape as one big curved shape, then add folds inside it.
Creatures, Monsters and Cuddly Animals
Monsters are forgiving — nobody knows what one is supposed to look like, so nothing can be wrong. These six run from ink blobs up to a snarling wolf, with two teddy bears at the soft end.
21. Spiky Ink Blob Monsters
Scribble a dense black blob, spike the edges, then drop in two white circles for eyes and a few triangle teeth. The eyes are the only clean shapes on the page, and that contrast is what makes them pop. Three minutes, start to finish.
22. Cheeky Gremlin With Bottles
Enormous pointed ears, a toothy grin, scruffy fur everywhere. When one feature is exaggerated the rest has to stay small so it reads — the ears only look huge because the body is compact. Draw the ears first.
23. Snarling Wolf
The hardest drawing here and a good target for older kids. Everything points backwards: ears pinned flat, fur swept back, lip pulled up over the teeth. Draw the mouth as a wedge first, then set the teeth inside it.
24. Hairy Troll Face
A long hooked nose, pointed ears and a beard drawn as thousands of fine ink strokes. All that hatching is patience more than skill — the strokes follow the direction the hair grows, curving around the jaw rather than running straight down. Kids who enjoy this should look at our ugly cartoon character drawing ideas, which is a whole page of faces built the same way.
25. Fluffy Teddy Bear
The fluff is the whole point. The outline is broken and feathery instead of a single clean line, which is what makes the bear look soft. Two circles for ears, one for the head, a bigger one for the body, then go back over the edges with short flicking strokes. More of the same in our easy cute animal drawing ideas.
26. Simple Round Teddy Bear
The clean-line version of the same bear, good for a younger sibling to draw alongside. Everything is a circle or oval, including the belly patch. With a smooth outline the shading does the work: light in the middle, darker at the edges.
Everyday Objects and Buildings
Objects sit still, which is why they teach shading better than anything else. These eight go from a single pencil to a house in perspective, and none need imagination — just looking.
27. A Sharpened Pencil
The best first shading exercise there is. A long rectangle, a cone for the tip, one side dark and the other left light. Add a shadow and it stands off the page. If it looks flat, the two sides are too close in tone.
28. Wooden Spoon
Fetch a real spoon from the kitchen and draw that. The bowl is an oval narrowing into the handle, and the shading follows the curve so the dip reads as hollow. Drawing from the object rather than from memory is a different skill.
29. A Shaded Cube
Three faces, three different tones: the top catches the most light, one side sits mid-grey, the other goes darkest. That is the whole rule of form in one drawing, and every box, building and book a child ever draws works the same way. When they want to push further, our 3D sketching ideas take the same principle into harder shapes.
30. Rounded Handbag
A curved handle, a soft rounded body, small buckles at the sides. The handle is the tricky part — both ends must attach at the same height or the bag looks like it is tipping. Rule a faint guideline first.
31. Woven Tote Bag
A pattern exercise. The criss-cross lines cannot stay straight — they bend with the curve of the bag, and that bend is what tells the eye the surface is round. Draw the bag first, then lay the grid over it.
32. Minimalist Smartphone
A rounded rectangle inside a slightly bigger one, plus a circle for the button. Quick, but it demands clean lines and even margins — kids notice at once if one side is thicker. Good practice in slowing down.
33. Open Laptop in Perspective
The step up from the phone. Screen and keyboard are rectangles seen at an angle, so their far edges are shorter than the near ones. Draw the screen as a wonky four-sided shape — that wonkiness is what perspective looks like.
34. A House With Windows and a Chimney
A rectangle, a triangle roof, a chimney and four windows spaced evenly. Line the upper windows up directly above the lower ones — unevenly spaced windows are the single thing that makes a child’s house look wrong. Scribble grass along the base so the house sits on the ground. There are plenty more in our simple house drawing ideas for kids.
Colour Practice With Pencils
Three exercises for the days when a child wants colour rather than graphite. Ordinary coloured pencils, and not one of them requires drawing a recognisable subject.
35. A Rainbow Arc
Six bands curving the same way, each drawn with strokes that follow the arc rather than cutting across it. Keep the first pass light and go over it again — layering builds richer colour than pressing hard.
36. Rainbow Scribble Loop
Loop the pencil round and round in an oval, swapping colours every few passes and letting them overlap. No way to do it wrong, which makes it a good reset after a frustrating drawing. The white centre stops it becoming mud.
37. A Rainbow-Coloured Cube
Draw the cube from idea 29 again, then fill each face with different colours. The three faces stay separated by their edges, so it still reads as a cube even though the colour is chaotic — form comes from structure, not tone alone.
Why Sketching Is Worth the Time
Sketching earns its place in a child’s week for reasons that have very little to do with producing good drawings.
- It costs almost nothing. A pencil, an eraser and paper. No subscription, no setup, nothing to charge.
- It builds fine motor control. Controlling pressure and stopping a line where it should stop uses the same hand skills as handwriting.
- It is genuinely screen-free. Twenty minutes of drawing is twenty minutes of sustained attention on one thing, which is increasingly rare.
- It shows visible progress. A child can flip back three weeks in a sketchbook and see they have improved. Few activities give feedback that clear.
- It travels. A small sketchbook covers waiting rooms, car journeys and restaurant queues.
It is also a doorway. Children who start with cartoon faces drift into painting, animation or comics, and the habit underneath it — looking properly at a thing before drawing it — carries into science and writing too.
Setting Your Child Up to Draw
You need less than you think, and the setup matters less than the habit.
Keep the supplies boring
One HB pencil, an eraser, a sharpener and a cheap sketchbook. Fancy materials raise the stakes and make children nervous about wasting a page. Add coloured pencils once they are drawing regularly.
Give them a spot and a time
A corner of the kitchen table with decent light, used at about the same time each day, beats a beautifully equipped art station used once a fortnight.
Praise the effort, not the likeness
“You got the shading really smooth there” tells a child something useful. “That looks just like a real dog” invites them to measure themselves against a standard they cannot hit yet. Never redraw a line on their page.
Give them something to copy
Copying is not cheating; it is how every artist starts. References, step-by-step breakdowns and other people’s drawings all count. Our simple drawing tutorials for kids break subjects into four or five stages, which suits children who freeze when handed a blank page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What age can a child start sketching?
Three or four for scribbling and simple shapes; six or seven for the emoji faces and bean characters here, where a line has to stop in the right place. The portraits and the wolf suit ten and up. If a child can copy a circle and a triangle, they can start.
My child gets upset when a drawing goes wrong. What helps?
Two things. Take the eraser away for a session and use the loose ideas here — the wild-eyed face, the goofy grin — where a wrong line improves the drawing. And get them drawing lightly: most frustration comes from pressing so hard that mistakes are permanent.
How long should a sketching session last?
Fifteen to twenty minutes for younger children, thirty to forty-five for older ones, and stop while they still want to keep going. Short and frequent beats long and occasional — which is why most ideas here finish in one sitting.
Do kids need to learn shading, or is line drawing enough?
Line drawing is enough for a long time. Introduce shading when a child starts complaining their drawings look flat — that complaint is the signal. Start with the cube and the pencil, since both have an obvious light and dark side.
Pick three ideas from this page tonight — one easy, one middling, one clearly too hard — and let your child choose which to start. The too-hard one is the important one. Children improve fastest on the drawing they were not sure they could finish. When they run out of ideas here, our drawing ideas for beginners pick up where this list leaves off.
