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

Squirrel drawing ideas are a gift to beginners, because a squirrel is basically one round animal wearing one gigantic tail. Learning how to draw a squirrel means learning to stack two soft shapes, add two little ears, and then draw a tail so big and so bushy that it does ninety percent of the character work for you before you have even reached the face.

By the end of these six steps you will have a bright-eyed squirrel sitting upright on your page, clutching an acorn like it is the last one in the whole park. There is a picture under every single step, so nobody has to interpret what "add the bushy tail" is supposed to mean. Look at the panel, copy what you see, move on to the next one.

This is one of my favourite tutorials to teach, because of the moment at step four. Children spend three steps drawing what looks like a fairly ordinary round animal, then they add that huge sweeping tail and the whole page changes — oh, it's a squirrel! So find a pencil, find a scrap of paper, and let's draw a little acorn thief together.

Squirrel drawing ideas: the 6 easy steps

Step 1 — Draw the round head

Start with a large circle near the top of your paper, a little left or right of centre so there is room for the tail later. It does not need to be perfect. A slightly lopsided circle looks more like a real animal than a compass-drawn one, and every wobble you leave in becomes character by the time you colour.

Press lightly. This first shape is scaffolding — parts of it will vanish under the eraser once the body arrives, and a heavy line is much harder to remove than a whisper of graphite. Draw it big, too: on a cartoon squirrel the head is the star, and an oversized head is what makes the animal read as young and friendly rather than wiry and wild.

Step 2 — Add the two little ears

Add two small rounded ears at the top of the head, set wide apart rather than bunched together in the middle. Squirrel ears are soft little tufts — rounded triangles with all the corners knocked off — and they are genuinely small. If your ears are more than about a quarter of the head's height, they belong to a rabbit.

Tuck the base of each ear slightly behind the head outline so they look attached rather than balanced on top. This one small overlap does a surprising amount of work: shapes that overlap look solid and three-dimensional, while shapes that merely touch look like stickers.

Step 3 — Draw the rounded body

Underneath the head, draw a rounded body shaped a little like a pear — narrow where it meets the head, comfortably wide at the bottom where the squirrel is sitting. Let it overlap the bottom of the head circle rather than starting neatly below it. Overlapping is what makes a drawing look like one animal instead of two shapes.

Keep the body about the same size as the head or slightly smaller. That big-head, small-body proportion is the whole secret of cute cartoon animals, and it costs nothing to apply. Squirrels sit upright when they eat, so keep the body vertical and let the bottom flare out into a comfortable sitting shape.

Step 4 — Add the big bushy tail

Here comes the payoff. Starting at the base of the body, draw one long curve sweeping outward and then up, like a giant question mark, until it rises to about the height of the squirrel's head. Then come back down with a second curve to give the tail its thickness. Make it fat. Then make it fatter.

A squirrel's tail is as big as the entire rest of the squirrel — that is not an exaggeration for the cartoon, it is roughly true in real life. Once the outline is in, go around the outer edge and replace the smooth line with soft scalloped bumps, like a row of shallow clouds. Those bumps are fur, and they turn a shape into a tail.

Step 5 — Add the paws, the acorn and the feet

Draw two short arms curving inward from the upper sides of the body so the paws meet in front of the chest, then draw a small acorn held between them: a rounded oval with a little cap on top and a stubby stalk. The acorn is doing a job here — it gives the paws a reason to exist, which is the hardest thing about drawing any animal front-on.

At the bottom, add two little back feet poking forward from under the body, angled slightly outward. Keep them small and simple; three short toe lines on each is plenty of detail. Squirrel feet are tucked-away things, and fussing over them tends to make the whole pose look stiff.

Step 6 — Add the face, then finish and color

Add two large round eyes low on the head with a wide rounded forehead above them, a small rounded nose, and a short curved smile beneath it. Leave a white dot in each eye. That single speck of unfilled white is the difference between eyes that look alive and eyes that look like two full stops.

Now go over your favourite lines with heavier pressure or a fine black marker, and gently erase the leftover scaffolding — especially the part of the head circle hidden behind the body. Colour the fur warm orange-brown, the tummy, inner ears and the inside of the tail cream, and the acorn two browns: a light one for the nut and a darker one for the cap. Two small pink cheeks take three seconds and add most of the charm.

Common mistakes to avoid

Making the tail too small

This is the number one squirrel problem by a wide margin. A modest tail turns your drawing into a mouse, a chipmunk or a slightly confused rat, and no amount of orange colouring will rescue it once the proportions are set.

The tail should be as large as the head and body put together. If it looks comically oversized on the page, it is almost certainly correct. When in doubt, add another centimetre of thickness — nobody has ever looked at a squirrel drawing and thought the tail was too fluffy.

Drawing tall, rabbit-like ears

Children often reach for tall ears because they signal "cute animal", but on a squirrel they immediately read as bunny, especially once the round body is in place beside them.

Keep the ears small — roughly a quarter of the head's height — rounded at the top and set wide apart. Add the little winter tufts at the tips instead of adding height. You get all the character with none of the rabbit.

Leaving the tail edge perfectly smooth

A smooth outline makes the tail look like a balloon or a leaf. It is a shape, but it is not fur, and the eye notices the difference instantly even if it cannot name the problem.

Go around the outer edge and break it into soft scalloped bumps of slightly different sizes. Uneven bumps look far more natural than evenly spaced ones. A few short lines drawn inward from the edge, following the tail's curve, finish the effect.

Troubleshooting

"My squirrel ran out of paper"

The head was drawn too centrally, leaving nowhere for the tail. Next time, place the head in the upper third and clearly off to one side, so a whole third of the page stays empty. If you are already stuck, curve the tail up and over behind the head instead of out to the side — it is a real squirrel pose and it fits in a much tighter space.

"The face looks grumpy"

The eyes are probably too high on the head, or too small. Move them down so they sit around the middle of the face, leaving a wide rounded forehead above, and make them noticeably bigger. Big eyes low on a round head is the entire recipe for a friendly cartoon animal.

"The body and head look like two separate blobs"

They are touching rather than overlapping. Let the top of the body cross a little way into the head circle, then erase the line where they cross. That single overlap fuses two shapes into one creature, and it works on every animal you will ever draw.

Key takeaways

FAQ

What age is this squirrel drawing tutorial for? It suits kids 5 and up with a little help, and most children 7 and older can finish all six steps on their own. A cartoon squirrel is really just two circles, two tiny ears and one enormous tail, so nothing in it is technically hard.

How do I draw the bushy squirrel tail? Draw it as one big question-mark curve sweeping up behind the body, then thicken it until it is as wide as the squirrel itself. Finish the outside edge with soft scalloped bumps instead of a smooth line, because those little bumps are what read as fur.

Why does my squirrel look like a mouse? Nearly always the tail is too small and the ears are too big. A squirrel's tail should be as large as its entire body, while its ears are small rounded tufts. Grow the tail, shrink the ears, and the mouse turns into a squirrel immediately.

Does my squirrel have to be holding an acorn? No, but it helps enormously. The acorn gives the front paws something to do, which solves the hardest part of drawing any animal from the front. If you would rather skip it, tuck both paws together against the chest instead.

You did it! Two circles, two tiny ears and one gloriously oversized tail later, there is a squirrel sitting on your page guarding an acorn with its whole heart. Stick it on the fridge, draw it a tree to live in tomorrow, and remember: every artist you have ever admired started exactly like this — one round, bushy-tailed, thoroughly determined squirrel at a time.

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