How to Draw a Rainbow

Add a pop of color to your drawing portfolio with today’s beginner tutorial on how to draw a rainbow. Apply your magical illustration to any colorful crafts or planned projects. Sublimate it onto baby clothes, use it for teacher appreciation gifts, or add them to your digital clipart library.

Before we get started with our drawing guide, get your supplies ready. These supplies can be anything from traditional mediums, such as watercolor paint and crayons, or digital drawing apps like Procreate.

Are you looking for other magical drawings that will complement your artwork? Learn how to draw dragonflies, or follow our advanced guide to draw a mermaid.

Step 1 - Sketch your Rainbow

In our first step, you need to use a sketching medium to make your rainbow sketch. This will help you to make corrections quickly. If you do not have an erasable tool such as a pencil, you can use a light color and cover it when applying color.

Create the Shape

Create the rainbow shape by drawing a half-circle with a line at the bottom. Your half-circle can also be more arched and as wide as you want your rainbow to be.

Add the Lines

Inside your shape, draw more half-circles that are spaced equally. Each line you add should be smaller than the one above.

Add Details

Once you have your rainbow sketched, you can add some details to make it unique. For example, you can add clouds on the sides or make each line section different.

For our magic clipart, we decorated it with smaller circles, a cloud line section, and a mushroom drawing in the center.

Step 2 - Define your Rainbow Sketch

Exchange your sketch medium for an outlining one that is dark and permanent. For your line art, you can make use of any defining medium, like an ink brush, black pen, or fine-tip marker.

As you are tracing over your sketch lines, make sure you avoid outlining sketches that you do not want to include in your final artwork. Then, if you used a removable sketching medium, clear what is left.

Step 3 - Apply Color to your Rainbow Illustration

For our third and final step, get your coloring supplies ready. You can use any combination or shades you have on hand for your coloring. If you are using Procreate and looking for themed palettes like floral, holidays, or seasonal, check out these Procreate color palettes.

Start with the first color at the top of the rainbow clipart and color in each section one by one until you reach the last color at the bottom.

You have reached the end of our step-by-step drawing tutorial. Great work following along and illustrating with us. Why not create fun and colorful rainbows with other styles and whimsical clipart elements?

With your creativity and our FREE drawing tutorials, you can have endless fun creating and illustrating all kinds of objects, foods, and animals.