How to Draw a Football

In today’s tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to draw a football. Draw for fun, prep for the big game, or create a sports clipart for your projects. We will show you step-by-step how to create this design so that you can be ready for any sporting event.

Getting your art supplies ready before you begin this football drawing guide is a good idea. You can use any medium you have available including drawing apps like Procreate.

If you are using Procreate like we are, you can use any type of brush to sketch, outline, and add color.

Design Bundles offers FREE Procreate brushes, so you can download them instantly and start drawing immediately!

Step 1 - Sketch the Shape of your Football

To begin our drawing tutorial, use a medium that can easily be removed or covered up. Start your sketch by making an oval shape, where the ends are more pointed than round.

Then, draw a horizontal line through the middle of the oval shape. This will be the seam of our football.

Step 2 - Sketch the Pattern for the Football

Next, we are going to roughly sketch the stripes and design around the laces. If you look at our sketch below, we drew two narrow and uneven oblong shapes with pointed ends. One was placed above the seam and one below.

On the left and right sides of the oblong shape, sketch 2 curved lines for the football stripes.

Step 3 - Add the Football Lace Design

In this step, we are going to draw the lace design on our football. We are first going to make the holes for the laces. Inside the oblong shapes, sketch eight small circles next to each other. You can follow our image below.

Next, we are going to sketch the laces. Draw a vertical rounded rectangle leading from one top lace opening to the bottom opening. Repeat this for the remaining seven openings. Then, sketch a horizontal rectangle between the two rows of openings to cover the seam.

Step 4 - Outline the Football Sketch

Once the sketch is complete, you can go ahead and permanently outline your drawing. We suggest using something more defined like a pen or marker.

Outline your football shape, the stripes, and the lace design. Outline the vertical laces first, then the bigger, horizontal lace running between them.

Once you have finished your outlines, you can remove your rough sketches.

Step 5 - Add Color to Your Football

In our final step, we are going to add color. A football is mostly brown in color with white for the stripes and laces. We used dark brown for the main design area, white for the stripes, and cream for the laces.

Add some dimension to your design by using lighter and darker shades of the base color. Follow the curve of the football and add a highlight to the top with a shadow on the bottom. Then, add a highlight along the seam.

Around the laces and at the bottom, we used a darker brown for the shadows. We repeated the process on the white stripes and the laces to add dimension. This is what the final result looks like.

You did a great job learning how to draw a football! Support your favorite team with football gear featuring your design. Change the laces to the color of your team for an eye-catching project.

You could even turn your football drawing into some fun game day stickers. We hope you had fun following this easy tutorial and creating your own football.