How to Draw Children

Last Updated: December 29, 2021

Children can be a bit more complicated to draw than other subjects. The trick is to simplify the face features and body lines as much as you can; by doing so you'll avoid making your kids' faces look old rather than young. This tutorial will help you draw two little girls of different ages.

Steps

1
Sketch the heads. Draw an oval with guidelines on the right side of the paper. Draw another, slightly rounder oval with guidelines to the left of this, leaving plenty of space between them.
2
Sketch the bodies and body positions using geometric shapes. Draw a vertical rectangle for the torso and a horizontal rectangle for the lower body, connected to each other and the head by a curved line (like a spine). Draw straight lines for the hands and legs, with circles for joints, and rectangles for the hands and feet.
- Make a taller body for the right head than for the left head, since this is the older sister/friend of the pair.
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3
Create the shape of the body on the sketched “skeleton." Draw the face and ears, but don't include features like the eyes and mouth just yet. Add the rest of the body to the “skeleton”.
- Don't detail the hands or feet too much at this step (same as the faces).
4
Draw the facial features. Start with the girl on the right.
- Make big eyes (following the horizontal guideline) and eyebrows above them, with a small triangular shape for the nose and a horizontal curved line for the mouth.
- Give her a bob hairstyle with bangs.
5
Follow the same steps for the smaller girl. However, make her eyes bigger and for the nose draw a flat oval. Change the hairstyle as well. Draw bangs and shoulder length hair.
- If you want your girls to be sisters or very close friends, you can actually give them more similar hair/facial expressions--it's all about the choices you make for your drawing.
6
Add the clothing and detail the hands. Carefully erase the “skeleton” lines.
- Draw a sleeveless dress for the bigger girl and a dress with short sleeves for the smaller girl. Add collars for both of them, but draw them in different styles.
- Make crinkles on both dresses.
- Finish up with the shoes.
7
Strengthen the lines, carefully erase all the sketch lines and add in color. Use the illustration as reference, or color them as you wish.

Community Q&A

Question

I would like to learn how to draw Native American children from the period of the 19th century. Can you help?

Community Answer

Do your research and look for multiple reference photos of Native American children so you can get a feel for the style of dress and similarities between facial features. Use your reference photos to draw your own artwork based on the photos.