How to draw a horse — easy step by step drawing ideas

Horse drawing ideas are requested in the studio more than almost any other animal, and I understand exactly why. Horses are graceful, strong and a little bit magical to children, and a drawing of one feels like an achievement in a way that a drawing of a snail simply does not. The trouble is that horses also have a reputation for being hard to draw — and learning how to draw a horse can feel out of reach for a beginner before they have even picked up a pencil.

Here is the good news: a cute cartoon horse is built from the same friendly, rounded shapes as every other tutorial on this site. A soft head, a curved neck, a rounded body, four simple legs and a big swoosh of mane. Once you know the order to draw them in, the whole thing takes about fifteen minutes, and it comes out looking like a horse every single time.

In this tutorial we will build a friendly chestnut horse in six easy steps, following the practice sheet below. I will share the pro tips I use when teaching it, the mistakes that trip up nearly every beginner, and quick rescues for the moments when your horse starts drifting toward “dog” or “cow”. Grab a pencil and a brown crayon, and let us draw.

The 6 steps to easy horse drawing ideas

Step 1 — Draw the head and ears

Start with the head, a little above the middle of your paper and slightly to the left, because the body will stretch out to the right. Draw a rounded shape that is longer than it is tall — think of a soft, chunky bean or a mitten lying on its side. The wider end is the top of the head where the eyes will go; the narrower end is the muzzle, where the nose and mouth will sit.

Now add the ears. Horse ears are short, pointed and close together on top of the head, like two little leaves or rose petals standing up. Draw each one as a narrow triangle with a rounded base, tilting very slightly outward. Keep them small. Big ears on a horse instantly turn it into a donkey, which is a lovely animal but not the one we are drawing today.

Step 2 — Add the face

Now the horse gets its personality. Draw two big round eyes in the upper, wider part of the head, and put a small white shine dot in each one. On a cute cartoon horse the eyes are large and friendly, set a little apart, and they sit higher on the head than you might expect — leave plenty of room below them for that long muzzle.

At the far end of the muzzle, draw two small nostrils as little curved commas, and beneath them a simple curved smile. Add a curved line inside each ear, then draw a small tuft of hair — the forelock — flopping down between the ears onto the forehead. Two or three rounded locks is plenty. It is a tiny detail that makes the face look soft and finished.

Step 3 — Add the neck and body

From the back of the head, draw the neck: two curved lines sweeping down and to the right, getting wider as they go, like a thick, gently bent tube. The top line of the neck starts just behind the ears; the bottom line starts under the chin. A horse's neck is long and arched, and that arch is where a lot of the grace comes from, so let it curve rather than drawing it straight.

Then draw the body: a big rounded shape attached to the bottom of the neck, longer than it is tall, with a softly curved back and a gently rounded belly. It should look like a fat loaf or a stretched egg lying on its side. Do not draw the underside too neatly — the legs will grow out of it in the next step, and it is easier to erase a little than to squeeze legs onto a closed shape.

Step 4 — Add the legs and tail

Legs are the part everyone worries about, so here is the simple version. Draw four legs hanging down from the body: two at the front, two at the back, each one a pair of nearly-straight lines that narrow slightly toward the bottom and end in a small, rounded hoof. Horse legs are long — roughly as tall as the body is deep — and slim, and that length is what makes the drawing feel like a horse rather than a pony or a cow.

Then add the tail. Start it high at the very back of the body and let it flow down and outward in a few big wavy locks, ending in soft rounded tips. Make it generous. A big swishing tail is one of the most horse-like things you can draw, and children love coloring it.

Step 5 — Add the mane and blaze

Now the finishing details. Draw the mane along the top of the neck as a row of big, soft, overlapping locks that flop to one side, starting just behind the forelock and running all the way down to the shoulders. Round every tip and keep all the locks flowing the same way. Three or four generous scoops look far better than a dozen spiky little ones.

Next, draw the blaze: a long stripe running down the front of the muzzle from the forehead to the nose, with softly wavy edges. This will stay white when we color, and it gives the horse a proper face. Finally, add a short curved line across each leg just above the hoof so the hooves look like separate shapes.

Step 6 — Finish and color

Darken the lines you want to keep and erase the light scaffolding underneath — the part of the body outline hidden behind the neck, the top of the legs inside the body, and any ground line you sketched. Then color: fill the head, neck, body and legs a warm chestnut brown, leaving the blaze white. Color the mane, forelock and tail a soft cream or blonde, the inner ears pink, and the hooves dark grey.

Leave the shine dots in the eyes uncolored so they sparkle. Then give your horse somewhere to be — a strip of green grass, a wooden fence, a red apple on the ground, a few clouds. Sign your name in the corner; every finished drawing deserves a signature.

Common mistakes to avoid

A head that is too round

This is the mistake that turns more horses into dogs than any other. Hands naturally want to draw a circle for a head, and a circle with a small nose on it reads as a puppy no matter how good the rest of the drawing is.

A horse's head is long. Draw it as a stretched, rounded shape with the muzzle end clearly narrower and further away, and put the eyes up high in the wide end. If yours came out round, simply extend the muzzle forward with a soft curve and move the nostrils to the new tip — a few seconds of pencil fixes the whole face.

Legs that are too short or too thick

Short, stubby legs are perfect for a cow or a pig, but on a horse they make the animal look heavy and squat. Thick, sausage-shaped legs do the same thing. The long, slim legs are what give the horse its elegance.

Make each leg roughly as tall as the body is deep, and keep the lines close together. If yours are too short, erase the hooves and redraw them lower down; if they are too thick, redraw the inner line of each leg a little closer to the outer one. The horse will instantly look taller and lighter on its feet.

A spiky mane

Beginners often draw the mane and tail as a row of sharp triangles, like a dinosaur's back or a crown. Sharp points make hair look stiff and plastic, and they take a lot of the softness out of a cute drawing.

Think of the mane as a few big scoops of ice cream stacked along the neck, each one rounded at the tip and flopping over the one below. Same for the tail: a handful of soft, wavy locks, not a broom. Round every point you have already drawn and it will immediately look like hair.

Troubleshooting

“My horse looks like a dog”

Check the head first: lengthen the muzzle and move the nostrils to the very tip. Then check the ears — they should be small, pointed and close together on top of the head, not floppy at the sides. Finally, lengthen the legs. Fixing the muzzle alone usually solves it.

“My horse looks like a cow”

Almost certainly the legs are too short and the body too round. Erase the hooves, redraw the legs longer and slimmer, and slim the belly line a little. Then make the neck longer and more arched, because a cow barely has a neck at all and a horse has a beautiful one.

“The neck looks stiff and stuck on”

Your neck lines are probably straight. Erase them and redraw with a gentle arch — the top line curving up and over like a rainbow, the bottom line following it more loosely. Let the neck get wider as it meets the body, so it flows into the shoulders rather than plugging into them.

Key takeaways

FAQ

What age is this horse drawing tutorial for? The six-step version works from about age 5 with a grown-up nearby, and most kids around 7 and up can follow the sheet on their own. The only tricky part is the legs, and the tutorial gives you a simple trick for those.

Why does my horse look like a dog or a cow? Almost always it is the muzzle or the legs. A horse has a long, soft muzzle and long slim legs, so if either has come out short and stubby the drawing tips toward a cow or a dog. Lengthen the muzzle and the legs and it snaps back into a horse.

What materials do we need? A pencil, an eraser, paper, and crayons or markers in brown and cream, plus a dark grey for the hooves. Any brown works, from chestnut to chocolate, and the mane can be cream, blonde, black or even rainbow.

How do I make the mane look soft instead of spiky? Draw the mane as a few big wavy locks that overlap like scoops of ice cream, not a row of sharp triangles. Round every tip, let the locks flop over the neck, and keep them all the same direction, as if a breeze is blowing them back.

That is your horse! Whether it came out sleek and elegant or a little bit lumpy, you built the animal everyone says is hard to draw out of a handful of soft shapes — and that belongs on the fridge. Keep the sheet handy, draw a whole herd galloping across a field, and come back tomorrow for a new tutorial.

More tutorials: All tutorials · How to draw a cow · How to draw a unicorn · How to draw a deer