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

Peacock drawing ideas are the showstoppers of the studio. When a child finishes a peacock, they hold it up and everyone at the table stops to look, because that giant fan of feathers with all its eyes is simply spectacular. And here is the secret: it is far easier than it looks. Learning how to draw a peacock is really learning how to draw a small bird and then a big decorated circle behind it.

I love this tutorial for children who enjoy patterns and coloring. The body is done in a couple of minutes, and then the rest of the time is spent on the fan — drawing the ring of eye spots, adding the feather lines, and finally filling it all with greens and blues and golds. It is calm, repetitive work with a glorious payoff, and it is very hard to get wrong.

In this tutorial we will build a proud teal peacock with a full fanned tail 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 fixes for when your peacock starts looking like a turkey. Grab a pencil and your brightest crayons, and let us draw.

The 6 steps to easy peacock drawing ideas

Step 1 — Draw the body and head

Start with the body, right in the middle of the paper and a little below center, because the fan will rise up and around it. Draw a small pear shape standing upright: narrow at the top, wider and rounder at the bottom. On top of it, draw a round head, a bit smaller than the widest part of the body, sitting directly on the narrow neck with no gap.

Keep the body and head small — together they should take up only the middle third of the paper. Everything else is going to be tail, and if the body is too big there will be no room for the fan. Keep the pencil light; you will darken the keeper lines at the end.

Step 2 — Add the face and crest

Now the peacock gets its personality. Draw two big round eyes in the middle of the head, set a little apart, with a small white shine dot in each. Between and just below them, draw a small pointed beak like a tiny sideways triangle, and add a soft blush circle on each cheek. Keep the beak little; a big beak turns the peacock into a chicken.

Then the crest, which is one of the peacock's signature features. On top of the head, draw three short thin stalks standing up like matchsticks, fanning out slightly, each with a tiny circle on the tip. It should look like three little lollipops or three pins stuck in the head. Small and neat is the goal.

Step 3 — Add the tail fan

Here is the step that makes a peacock a peacock. Behind the body, draw a huge circle — the fan — centered on the body and reaching almost to the edges of the paper. It should be at least three times the height of the body. Start the circle at one side of the body's base, sweep it up and over the head, and bring it down to the other side.

Instead of a smooth line, draw the outer edge of the fan as a row of soft scallops — rounded bumps, like the edge of a cloud or a row of petals — all the way around. Each bump is where one big feather ends. Aim for nine or ten bumps. Do not worry about making them perfectly even; slight differences look natural.

Step 4 — Add the eye spots

Now the famous eye spots. Just inside the scalloped edge, draw a ring of big ovals, one inside each scallop, standing upright like eggs, all the same size and evenly spaced around the fan. Start with the one at the very top, directly above the head, then work down each side so the two halves match.

Inside each oval, draw a smaller oval, and inside that a tiny circle — three shapes nested together, like a target. These are the “eyes” on the feathers, and they will be colored blue and gold at the end. Nine eye spots in a ring is the sweet spot: fewer looks sparse, and more gets crowded.

Step 5 — Add the legs and feather lines

Under the body, draw two thin legs: two short lines hanging down side by side, each ending in a small foot with three toes pointing forward, like a chicken's. Keep them close together and short, so the peacock looks like it is standing proudly rather than striding.

Then the feather lines. From the base of the body, draw a line out to each eye spot, like the spokes of a wheel or the rays of a sun, one line between each pair of ovals. These are the shafts of the big tail feathers, and they turn the plain circle into a fan of individual plumes. Add a few tiny strokes along each line if you like, for barbs, but keep them light.

Step 6 — Finish and color

Darken the lines you want to keep and erase the light scaffolding underneath — the part of the fan hidden behind the body, and any guide lines. Then color: fill the body and head a rich teal blue, the beak and legs orange, and the crest stalks green with tiny blue tips. Color the whole fan green, then color each eye spot with a blue outer oval, a gold middle oval and a dark blue center dot.

Leave the shine dots in the eyes uncolored so they sparkle, and add pink to the blush cheeks. Then give your peacock somewhere to be — a bit of grass, a garden wall, a few flowers, a bright sun. Sign your name in the corner; every finished drawing deserves a signature.

Common mistakes to avoid

A fan that is too small

This is the number one peacock mistake. Children draw a lovely body and then a modest circle behind it, and the result looks like a bird standing in front of a plate. The fan is the whole point of a peacock, and it needs to be enormous.

Draw the fan at least three times the height of the body, reaching nearly to the edges of the paper. If yours is too small, erase it and redraw it bigger — the body does not need to change at all.

Eye spots that are uneven

Eye spots that are different sizes or bunched up on one side make the fan look lopsided and messy, and it is hard to fix once they are colored.

Always draw the top eye spot first, directly above the head, and then work down each side, matching the left and right as you go. Keep all the ovals the same size, one per scallop.

A body that is too big

A big body squeezes the fan and makes the peacock look heavy and awkward. The peacock's body is surprisingly small — it is the tail that is huge.

Keep the body and head together to about a third of the paper's height, right in the middle, and let the fan do the rest.

Troubleshooting

“My peacock looks like a turkey”

Enlarge the fan, add the ring of eye spots with three nested shapes in each, and draw the three-stalk crest on the head. Then color the eye spots blue and gold. Turkeys have plain feathers; eyes make it a peacock.

“The fan looks flat and empty”

Add the feather lines radiating from the body between the eye spots, and add a few tiny strokes along each line for barbs. Coloring the fan green and leaving thin lighter gaps along the feather lines also helps.

“I ran out of room for the fan”

The body was drawn too high or too big. Next time, draw a smaller body just below the center of the paper. For this drawing, let the fan run off the edges of the paper — it actually looks quite dramatic that way.

Key takeaways

FAQ

What age is this peacock 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 eye spots take a little patience, but they are just ovals inside ovals.

How many eye spots should the tail have? About nine, evenly spaced in a ring around the outer edge of the fan. Fewer looks sparse and more gets crowded and hard to color. Draw the top one first, then work down each side so they match.

What materials do we need? A pencil, an eraser, paper, and crayons or markers in teal or blue for the body, green for the fan, and blue and gold for the eye spots. Orange for the beak and legs is a nice extra.

Why does my peacock look like a turkey? The fan is probably too small or the body too big. A peacock's tail fan should be enormous, at least three times the height of the body, and the eye spots make the difference: a turkey has plain feathers, a peacock has eyes.

That is your peacock! Whether the eye spots came out perfectly even or a little bit wobbly, you built the most spectacular bird in the world out of a snowman and a big decorated circle — and that belongs on the fridge. Keep the sheet handy, try a fan in every color you own, and come back tomorrow for a new tutorial.

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