How to Draw an Elf

In the festive mood to draw an elf? We've got the perfect drawing lesson for you! With our easy-step-by-step tutorial, create this cute elf clipart for your Christmas stickers, or gifts for family and friends. Think of all the fun decorations you can make this festive season using your drawing.

Let’s get started by gathering our drawing supplies. Our drawing tutorials are for all skill levels and can be used with any medium you have on hand. Use traditional supplies like pencils and paint, or digital apps like Procreate and DesignScape.

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Step 1 - Sketch the Head and Ears

Let’s begin our elf drawing by first roughly sketching the head and ears. For our sketches, we will be using a pencil that we can erase later. You can also use a light color of your chosen medium.

For the elf’s head, sketch a circle, then draw the ears on the left and right sides. The ears should be pointed at the top, resembling a leaf as seen in our sketch below.

Step 2 - Sketch the Body and Arms

Below the head, sketch a small squared shape for the neck. Around the neck, draw jagged lines to create the elf’s collar detail.

Below the collar, roughly draw a vertical oval for the elf’s body. Then, on either side of the body, starting from the collar, draw the arms. Bend the arms so the hands are resting on the hips. You are welcome to change the position of the arms however you want.

For the hands, we simply drew a squared shape with bumps for the fingers.

Step 3 - Sketch the Legs and Feet

On the bottom of the body, sketch long jagged edges as you did with the collar. You can change it up and draw pants with suspenders or create a dress.

Next, draw two legs at the bottom that are wider at the top, and narrower at the bottom.

Finally, at the bottom of the legs, draw the shoes. We made the shoe ends curl up with a jagged edge detail around the top. See our sketch below for a visual guide.

Step 4 - Sketch the Hat and Final Details

We are now going to add the hat, face, and clothing details to our elf. Starting with the hat, draw any style or shape on top of your elf’s head to make the hat.

Our elf has a slouchy hat that is curled down and pointed to the left. We also added the same jagged detail as for the collar and shoes, but this time pointing upwards.

The face detail is very simple and straightforward. Draw two half-moon curves for the eyes, a small line for the nose and a curved half-circle for an open, smiling mouth. Sketch a pointed curved shape inside each elf ear.

Continue adding details to your elf drawing. You can add whatever you choose such as stripes on the legs, a belt, bells, etc.

Step 5 - Outline The Rough Elf Sketch

Once you are done with your elf sketch, it's time to outline everything with a permanent pen, marker or dark medium of your choice. You can also use these Procreate inking brushes for your outline.

While outlining your design, be sure to avoid the overlapping sketch lines that you don't want to include in your drawing. After outlining, remove the rough sketches.

Step 6 - Add Color to Your Elf

In this final step, we are going to add color to our elf outline. You can use any color palette you want for your elf drawing. We will be using Christmas colors of red, white and green for the clothes and brown for the shoes and belt.

We then used a peach color for the skin tone and yellow for the belt and hat details

Believe in yo' elf and you can draw anything your imagination creates! Have a look at our other easy drawing tutorials and create more Christmas clipart for your digital library. Just imagine how cute your elf will look with a Christmas tree on a greeting card or Christmas gift tags.

We hope we have inspired you to create more caricatures like this elf drawing tutorial. Change things up by making different clothes and you can easily have a fairy or soccer player.