How To Draw A Cactus Step By Step (Easy Drawing Tutorial)
Something that appears in almost all cartoon depictions throughout my entire childhood has been a cactus. Weird, I know! But, I have to admit that I absolutely loved this cactus drawing. It took a bit of time but the end result looked awesome. So, in today’s drawing tutorial, I’m going to share my step-by-step guide on how to draw a cactus.
You’re going to need atleast 10 minutes at most to complete this drawing but it’s worth the time.
You’ll actually gain some understanding on perspective as well as how to draw an object that appears 3D.
With that being said, let’s not waste any time and get into this guide on how to draw a cactus.
Reference
For this tutorial, I think it’s imperative that we refer to an image that can be used for our drawing. As you gain more experience, it will become easier for you to draw things from your mind’s eye alone.
For now, we’ll use this cactus image for our drawing.
So, from this image, we can tell that there’s the main base that makes up the cactus which is accompanied by smaller extensions that appear in the foreground.
They look like arms extending out of the cactus body and they all have vertical grooves with porcupines.
It would be best for us to start with the base and then move onto the arms. We’ll save the finer details for last.
Steps For Drawing A Cactus
Step 1
Let’s begin this cactus drawing with the base. We have two parallel lines that are quite spread apart.
They’re relatively straight but wavy which means that you can use freehand pen work.
Start at the bottom and work your way up, curve at the very top but instead of drawing a complete line down the right, stop a quarter of the way.
Leave a gap of about 4 – 6 cm before continuing the line and stopping parallel to your start point.
Step 2
The empty space will now be used to draw our first arm which will appear as if it’s in front of the main cactus body.
This looks like a sharp oval shape that also eats into the body of your cactus.
Step 3
Add more arms by drawing more oval shapes that connect to either side of the body. These shapes must connect directly to your main vertical lines on either side.
Step 4
Add a large and longer arm extending out of the left side.
You’ll only see one rounded point because the connecting area is meant to appear as if it’s behind the main body or on the other side.
So, the lines that connect should be spread apart.
Step 5
Now that we have drawn the overall body of our cactus drawing, it’s time to add some of the details. Let’s begin with the vertical grooves.
Draw a handful of these slightly curved lines within the arms of your cactus.
They should start at the top and end at the bottom.
Step 6
Fill in the rest of your cactus drawing with more vertical lines of approximately the same distance between each other.
By now, these grooves should be taking shape and your cactus is really close to being complete.
We’ll use these lines to insert our porcupines which is why I wanted you to draw them now.
Step 7
Lastly, add as many porcupines as you’d like on most of the lines that appear in your image.
You can skip one or two like I have to avoid overcrowding your image.
These porcupines look like simple X’s that are quite haphazardly drawn. You can also opt for straight and sharp lines that are relatively short as well.
To completely your cactus drawing, I would suggest coloring it a rich and dark green and it will instantly boost the attractiveness of the final edit.
Conclusion
Can you believe that it would be this easy and fun to draw a cactus? I was actually intimidated at first and assumed that it would take quite a while to draw.
But, after playing around, I was able to figure out the easiest and quickest way to complete this drawing.
With that being said, I really do hope you enjoyed this guide on how to draw a cactus. Please consider sharing it with your friends or family who wants to learn how to draw.
If you would like for me to publish a specific drawing guide, feel free to leave your requests in the comment section below.
Also, check out some of my other simple but awesome drawing tutorial linked below.
