How to Draw a Squirrel

In today's animal drawing tutorial, we show you how to draw a squirrel step-by-step. These charming forest critters' bushy tails and adorable expressions are great for practicing your drawing skills. Turn your squirrel illustration into fun coloring pages for kids, use it as clipart for a nature-themed project, or even incorporate it into a personalized gift for a friend who loves animals.

For this drawing guide, you will need a paper or digital drawing app like Procreate. Using your favorite medium or brush pack, you will also need sketching and outlining tools and shades of brown like these boho color palettes.

Create a collection of illustrated forest animal clipart that will complement your squirrel drawing with our drawing exercises. Check out these tutorials on how to draw an owl or drawing a hedgehog.

Step 1 - Roughly Sketch your Squirrel

In our first step, you will need a sketching medium to make a rough squirrel sketch. You can use any erasable or light-colored medium, such as a pencil.

Shape the Head and Body

In the center of your drawing area, sketch a large oval shape that is angled at a slight right for the body. Then on the right side, leaving a gap, draw a smaller oval for the head.

Angle the head toward the left as we did with our red example sketch below.

Add the Front Paw

Add two lines between the head and body to shape the back and front paw. Starting with the back neckline, draw a slightly curved line from the top of the squirrel head toward the body (see the blue sketches).

Next, draw a curved line from the bottom of the head toward the body while adding the front paw. As seen with our red sketch line, sketch a shot curved line close to the head, extend it toward the right, and make another bend to shape the paw.

Continue the line toward the body, making a shallow indent when you get closer to it.

Add the Tail

At the bottom left side of the body, draw a long bent shape for the squirrel's tail. You can also shape the tail to curve above the whole body or even have it lay flat.

Add the Hind Leg

Next, add the squirrel's hind leg on the right side of the body oval. Start close to the paw line and make the hind leg toward the right, as we did in our example below.

Add the Features

To finalize our squirrel sketch, add facial features such as the ear, eye, and nose. Draw an arched line for the ear on the back of the head. Then, toward the right, add an almond shape for the eye (shown in blue), and lastly, add the nose at the end of the head oval. See our guide image below.

Step 2 - Define your Squirrel Outline

Using a darker medium such as a pen, inking brush, or permanent marker, begin defining your sketch lines to make defined line art. Trace and darken the lines that you want to keep, and once you are done, remove your rough sketches.

Trace the Outer Shape

Trace around the outer shape of the body and tail of your squirrel. Add short jagged edges in some places to add the effect of hair and line part of the head oval, and add a curved line to shape the hind leg, as we did.

Add Details

Next, define the facial features and add a rough shape inside the ear with a short line close to the nose for the mouth (shown in red).

Add texture to your animal outline by adding clusters of jagged edges on the body and tail. Feel free to create any additional details or apply elements like drawing an acorn by the paw or on the ground.

Step 3 - Color and Shade your Drawing

If you want to make your drawing more vibrant, you can add color to it. Use colored pencils to color the squirrel's fur, eyes, and nose. Use brown for the fur and black for the eye and nose. Apply multiple shades of brown to make the fur look more realistic.

Learn how to blend in Procreate using different methods to create gradients and add hair textures to add even more detail to your squirrel.

Your squirrel drawing is now complete! Why not combine your drawing with other elements to create a themed squirrel? We can only imagine how adorable it would look if your little critter wore a flower crown or decorated with cute Halloween clipart.