How to Draw an Owl Step by Step

by easylinedrawing

This easy step by step tutorial shows how to draw a cartoon owl. It includes simple drawing instructions and illustrated examples for each step.

This tutorial can be good for anyone looking for some very simple drawing practice or to just draw something for fun.

Start the drawing in pencil and make light and thin lines that you can easily erase as you will need to do so in between several of the steps. You can go over the owl with darker outlines after you finish the line drawing portion of the tutorial.

Step 1 – Draw the Owl’s Head & Body

First make a simple drawing of the outline shapes of the owl’s head and body as shown in the example above.

Step 2 – Draw the Wings

Now add the wings going down from the bottom part of the head down to almost the bottom of the body. Draw them slightly wider towards the top and narrower with almost pointy tips at the bottom. The wings should curve slightly around the body sort of “hugging” it.

Once you are done drawing the wings erase the sides of the outline of the body so that you have a clean drawing like the one in the example.

Step 3 – Draw the Feet

Add the feet as sort of small sausage like shapes with the middle toe being the largest and the ones on the sides being slightly smaller.

Erase the parts of the body outline that will be overlapped by the feet once you are done.

Step 4 – Draw the “Horns”

As this is a horned owl add the “horn like” shapes on the top of its head (really these are just feathers) with a bump like curve between them.

Step 5 – Draw the Beak

In the middle of the head draw the beak. Owls generally have fairly small and narrow beak compared to the size of their head. The overall shape of the beak should be similar to an oval but it will also be split between it’s top and bottom portion with the top having a pointy tip.

Step 6 – Draw the Face Pattern

Now from around the tip of each “horn” draw a curved line going down to the top part of the beak.

Afterwards erase the portion of the head between these lines and the “horns”.

Step 7 – Draw the Eyes

Draw a pair of large round eyes that are very characteristic of an owl and inside each eye draw another small circle for the pupils. Instead of placing each pupil directly in the middle of the eye draw them slightly closer towards the beak.

Finally inside each eye draw a small oval shaped highlight overlapping about halfway into each pupil. Erase the parts of the pupils covered by the highlights after you finish drawing them.

Step 8 – Finish the Line Drawing

To finish the line drawing of the owl add some inner patterns of it’s body that will be used to help color it in the next step. On it’s head draw a smaller inner shape that somewhat follows the main outline of the head. Also draw an oval like shape on it’s chest/stomach area.

After you finish the line drawing you can go over it with a black pen/marker or just darker pencil lines. You can also fill in the pupils of the eyes with black (leave the highlights white).

Step 9 – Color the Owl

To color the owl you can use paints or colored pencils.

In this case the main color of the body will be a light brown but you can use other colors such as grey if you prefer. Make the body patterns added in the previous step a much lighter variation of whatever color you use for the body.

Color the feet and beak a light orange and make the eyes a light yellow.

After coloring the drawing you should be done with the tutorial.

Conclusion

Drawing a stylized cartoon owl like the one in this tutorial is fairly easy and can be good basic drawing practice for beginners. It can also just be something you draw for fun.

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