How to Draw Elephants
Of all the animals to draw, elephants remain one of the most interesting because of their eye-catching features and extraordinary size. For example, the largest living land mammal on Earth is the African elephant, with males growing up to 11-feet high and weighing up to 14,000 pounds, according to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington D.C. Some of the key features to focus on when drawing elephants, include the trunk, large ears, tusks and wrinkles. Keep your sketches light when you first draw your elephant for ease when erasing lines making changes. Darken the finished drawing later.
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Things You'll Need
- Drawing paper
- 6H drawing pencil
- 2B and 4B drawing pencils
- Stick eraser
- Kneaded eraser (optional)
- Colored pencils (optional)
Instructions
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Draw a large, oval shape to represent the elephant's body, using a 6H pencil. The 6H pencil makes the lightest lines. Draw a smaller circle connected to the left of the oval, to represent the elephant's head. The circle does not have to be perfectly round---an imperfect circle works better and looks more real.
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Make a trunk starting from the middle of the smaller circle on the left side, moving down vertically. The trunk should look like a long cylinder shape. You can curve the trunk up a little, if you choose. Make a line at the bottom of the trunk but curve it at the center rather than straight across so it looks like a real trunk. As you can see, your elephant will have a side view. Erase any lines that intersect or pass through the bottom of the circle.
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3
Draw an eye at the center of the elephant head. Make the eye a horizontal, oval shape with a small circle inside for the pupil. Lightly shade the pupil in, keeping a small white circle as a highlight. You can add more detail and shade the pupil darker later.
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Add details to your elephant head like an open mouth just behind the trunk. Otherwise, it may not be seen from the side angle. Draw tusks coming out of the head on either side of top of the trunk. Tusks look like boomerangs with the curve up.
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Sketch a large, wide, curvy, triangle for an elephant ear, starting at the top of the smaller circle. Keep the ear close to the head. Erase all overlapping lines on the smaller and larger circle.
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6
Make four rectangle shapes at the bottom of the larger circle. These rectangles represent elephant legs. Draw curves at the bottom of each rectangle to make them look like real elephant feet. Erase lines from the rectangle legs that cross into the large oval body.
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Add a curved line for a tail at the back of the body. Draw a small oval at the end of the tail.
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Draw in details such as horizontal lines partially across the long trunk to represent wrinkles, lines on the ear and body to show more wrinkles. Add lines for wrinkles around the eyes, which also adds expression. If you need help drawing wrinkles, look at the wrinkles on your fingers or hands.
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Use a dark pencil, like the 2B to go over your drawing. Use the 2B along with the darker and softer, 4B pencil to experiment with shading techniques. Select gray, pink and red colored pencils if you decide to add color your drawing. Most of the elephant has shades of gray. Use light shades of pink and red for the mouth, for example.
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Tips & Warnings
Practice drawing elephants to improve your skills. Take your time and experiment with different positions and views. Sketch multiple elephants in one drawing.
Add a little water with a rag or a brush to your drawing after shading with the soft, 2B and 6B pencils. Use a kneaded eraser lightly over parts of your elephant drawing. The water and eraser technique create tones and more shading.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit elephant image by david purday from Fotolia.com
