How to Draw a Cactus Step by Step

This tutorial shows how to draw a cactus step by step with easy to follow illustrated examples and quick tips.

The example is of a fairly large cactus that you may find growing in the desert. Although, some people may also have these as house plants. The tutorial is done in a fairly simple beginner friendly style. The first four steps show how to create the line drawing of the cactus by gradually adding it’s various parts to give the plant it’s characteristic shape. The last two steps show how to apply some very basic color and shading to help make the drawing stand out. You can see this above in the preview image of the six drawing stages.

Start the tutorial in pencil and make light lines as you will need to erase a part of the outline when adding the “arms”. You can darken your lines before coloring using a black pen or marker.

Step 1 – Draw the Trunk of the Cactus

First, outline the trunk of the cactus (also called the column). Make this of fairly even width throughout and a curve top. Leave the bottom of the outline open.

Step 2 – Draw the Arms (Branches of the Cactus)

Growing out of the trunk draw the cactus arms. Make these curving up from roughly the middle of the trunk. Position one closer to the front and more more towards the back. When adding the front arm you will need to erase a bit of the trunks outline (as mentioned at the start of the tutorial).

Step 3 – Draw the “Ribs” Running Along the Trunk & Arms

Along the trunk an the arms add some lines to create sort of “stripes” that are so characteristic of this type of cactus.

You can use the outlines of the trunk/arms as guides when drawing these as you want the “stripes” to somewhat follow their shapes.

Step 4 – Draw the Spikes/Cactus Needles

Finally, for one of the most characteristic feature so the cactus add the spikes. Draw these in little batches along the “rib” lines. Their overall shapes should look a bit like little stars.

You can make the spacing between the different clusters of spikes fairly even but it does not need to be perfectly so.

Once you’ve added this last set of details you can trace over your drawing with darker pencil lines or a thin black marker. Just be sure you are happy with how things look prior to doing so.

Step 5 – Color the Cactus

For this very simple step just fill the entire cactus with a solid green. You can use whatever you like or have on hand to apply the color (paints, markers, colored pencils, etc…)

Step 6 – Add Some Basic Shading

For the final step add some basic shading to give the cactus a slightly more three dimensional appearance. In this example the shading is done as though the light is coming from the upper left of the cactus. To show this darken right side of the trunk/column and the lower and right side of each arm (as shown in the example above). If you don’t have a darker variant of the green you used in the previous step create the shadows by simply lightly going over the color with a regular pencil.

Conclusion

This guide shows how to create a fairly simple drawing of a cactus by adding it’s various parts in different steps. It also shows how to apply some basic color and shading.

Although the drawing is fairly stylized it’s still easily recognizable as a cactus due to having a shape that is very characteristic of such plants. In addition to it’s shape some basic color and shading also helps the drawing stand out and be even easier to recognize as green is generally associated with plants.

If you find these kinds of step by step guides helpful be sure to also try the following tutorials: