A penguin is two shapes: a tall oval for the body and a rounded white front laid on top of it. The flippers, feet and beak are added after — eight steps.
Penguins are such adorable creatures! Looking at their cute shape and their distinctive waddle, you bet they are one of the cutest animals on earth. Penguins are what we call flightless birds and instead of having wings, they have flippers. Although they can’t fly they are actually excellent swimmers.
Before learning to draw a penguin with ease, you can first add colors to penguin illustrations by clicking here!
So, are you ready to draw your very own cute and adorable penguin?
How to Draw a Penguin
Materials
- Pencil
- Paper
Instructions
Step 1: Draw the Body
Let’s start with the penguin’s body. We do this by drawing a big oblong at the center of the page.
Step 2: Draw the Belly
Next, let’s draw a smaller oblong inside the big oblong we’ve previously drawn. While drawing, imagine that this would be the penguin’s cute white belly. Fun fact, Penguins have white bellies to help them blend in the ice to avoid predators. So make sure you color it white later!
Step 3: Draw the Eyes
Now let’s draw two small circles at the uppermost part of the smaller oblong we’ve drawn. Make sure you draw the circles right beside each other without a gap. Also, make it protrude a little bit out of the smaller oblong into the penguin’s body. This will make the eyes look cuter!
Step 4: Add Details to the Eyes
To add more details to the penguin’s eyes, we draw two smaller circles inside the ones we’ve made earlier. We then shade it black with a pencil to form the eyes. After that, we draw another smaller circles overlapping the bottom-right edge of the eyes. Then we erase the shaded part in the shape of the overlapping circles that we’ve made.
Step 5: Draw the Mouth
Let’s draw the penguin’s beak! We do this by drawing a small inverted triangle at the center of the body just below the eyes. Very easy right? Another fun fact, most penguins like to eat krill, squid, and fish.
Step 6: Draw the Legs
Penguins have cute little legs so we’ll draw just that. We draw the legs by drawing two blunted inverted triangles at the bottom part of the body.
Step 7: Draw the Flippers
Let’s finally draw the most iconic body part of the penguin, the flippers! To do this we draw a curved line from the upper body outward and downward. And then we reconnect the line to the penguin’s body forming somewhat like a triangular shape. Then we do this on the other side.
Step 8: Finish up!
We’re almost done with the drawing. Lastly, erase the line that divides the flippers from the penguin’s body. You can also color your drawing however you like. But make sure to leave the penguin’s belly white!
Make it easier for a younger child
Leave out the separate white belly shape and colour only the outer body instead. The penguin still reads correctly and there is one less curve to line up.
Turn it into a cute cartoon penguin
Round the body until it is nearly as wide as it is tall, put the eyes wide apart with a small round beak between them, and turn the feet outward. A rounder penguin looks younger, which is what most cartoon versions do.
Use the finished outline for tracing and colouring
Because the belly shape sits inside the body shape, the finished outline already has two areas to colour separately — useful if you want a simple colouring page from the same drawing.
Questions parents ask about drawing a penguin
How many steps is it, and can we stop partway?
It is 8 steps, and they are meant to be stopped partway. Each step adds one shape to a drawing that already looks like something, so a drawing put down after the main body shape is still a finished picture rather than an abandoned one.
What supplies do we need?
A pencil, an eraser and paper. The eraser does more work than the pencil here — several steps put down a guide shape and rub it out once the real line is drawn, so start light.
Which step is hardest when drawing a penguin?
Lining up the white front inside the body so the gap around it stays even. Draw the outer body first, then draw the inner shape a finger’s width inside it all the way round.
Should we use pencil, or go straight in with crayons?
A pencil first, then colour over the finished lines. Crayon and marker cannot be erased, so a guide shape drawn in marker stays in the picture. If you would rather skip the drawing and go straight to colouring, our Penguin Coloring Pages are already drawn and ready to print.