Christmas

72 Christmas Drawing Ideas for Cards and Sketchbooks

Most Christmas subjects are simple forms with one technical catch: a spiral stripe on a candy cane, a reflection wrapped around a bauble, six-fold symmetry in a snowflake. Get that one thing right and the drawing works.

Catalog status

72 ideas · 2 illustrated

The beginner section is mostly card-sized doodles of five to fifteen minutes. After that come decorations, characters and full scenes (a snowy village, a fireplace, a tree seen through a window at night), plus studies of the three things Christmas drawings keep asking for: white snow, glowing lights and shiny metal. All three come down to the same skill, which is placing the darks so the bright parts can stay as bare paper.

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How to use this list

Draw white by darkening around it
Snow and white fur are untouched paper. Build the tone next to them instead.
Stripes are spirals
Candy canes, ribbons, and scarves wrap around a tube. Straight stripes look printed on.
Keep card designs closed
Card-sized drawings need clean closed silhouettes to survive being small.

Christmas ideas by difficulty

72 ideas, each with a starting point

Card-sized doodles first, then decorations, characters and scenes, then the longer snow, light and metal studies that need real shading.

Beginner

37 ideas

A sleeping puppy in a too-big scarf
Let the scarf mass be bigger than the dog; that is the joke.
14 minbeginner
A chubby robin puffed up against the cold
Puffed birds are almost a sphere with a beak stuck on.
12 minbeginner
A penguin sliding on its belly
Tilt the whole body 30 degrees; flippers go back, not down.
12 minbeginner
A pine tree reduced to five triangles
Stack triangles widest at the bottom; keep the trunk narrow.
8 minbeginner
A snowflake built on six-fold symmetry
Draw one arm perfectly, then repeat it six times.
14 minbeginner
A stack of cookies with one broken in half
The break shows crumb texture; everything else stays smooth.
14 minbeginner
A gingerbread person with piped icing
Icing lines sit on top — draw them last, thicker than the outline.
12 minbeginner
A candy cane with an accurate twist
The stripe is a spiral around a tube; it narrows at the edges.
12 minbeginner
A wrapped present with the ribbon crossing off-centre
Off-centre ribbon looks handmade; dead-centre looks like clip art.
14 minbeginner
A Christmas stocking hung with a slight sag
Weight pulls the toe down; the cuff stays level.
14 minbeginner
A string of fairy lights looped twice
Draw the cable as a smooth catenary before adding bulbs.
16 minbeginner
A snowman melting slightly on one side
Asymmetry sells the melt; drop one shoulder only.
14 minbeginner
A pair of socks with faces
Ribbing at the cuff is five short parallel lines. No more.
10 minbeginner
A wreath built from five repeated leaf shapes
Draw the ring guide first; leaves all point the same way round.
18 minbeginner
A hot chocolate with marshmallows piled over the rim
Marshmallows are rounded cubes; let two break the rim line.
16 minbeginner
A bauble drawn as one circle with a cap and a hanging loop
Draw the circle first, then sit a small rectangle cap slightly into its top edge; the loop is a tiny arch on the cap.
6 minbeginner
A star tree-topper in one continuous line
Five straight strokes without lifting the pen make the star; erase the lines that cross inside it so it reads as one flat shape cut from card.
5 minbeginner
A Christmas tree drawn as a single zigzag
Start under the star and zigzag down, each stroke a little wider than the last, then add a short square trunk.
5 minbeginner
A wrapped present seen from directly above
From above it is a square crossed by two ribbon bands; the bow is four loops meeting where the bands cross.
8 minbeginner
A sprig of holly with three berries
Draw the centre vein of each leaf first, then the wavy spiked edge; the berries overlap where the stems meet.
8 minbeginner
Two candy canes hooked together into a heart
Rough in a heart as a guide, then split it down the middle into two hooks; the stripes still spiral round each cane.
12 minbeginner
A mitten with a snowflake knitted on the back
One rounded rectangle with a thumb bump on one side; the cuff is a band of short ribs and the snowflake sits centred above it.
10 minbeginner
A jingle bell with a ribbon bow on top
Draw a sphere, then cut the slot as a thin dark curve across the lower half, ending in a small round hole at each end.
10 minbeginner
A border of holly and berries along the edge of a card
Design one leaf-and-berry unit, then repeat it along the edge, flipping every other one so the repeat does not look mechanical.
15 minbeginner
A sleigh and reindeer in silhouette crossing a full moon
Make the moon a large pale circle first, then draw the whole team as one connected dark shape running across it.
14 minbeginner
A snowman stacked from three snowballs
Overlap the circles slightly and shrink each one, then flatten the bottom ball where its weight meets the ground.
10 minbeginner
A reindeer face built on an upside-down teardrop
Teardrop for the head, two leaf-shaped ears, then antlers as simple Y shapes that branch once more at the tips.
10 minbeginner
A gingerbread person with one leg bitten off
Draw the whole figure first, then cut the bite out as three small scalloped curves; the icing line stops at the bite.
10 minbeginner
A round Santa face with a cloud-shaped beard
The face is a small circle sitting high inside a big bumpy beard; the hat trim uses the same bumpy outline.
12 minbeginner
A small elf with a pointed hat and curled shoes
Build it from a tall triangle hat, a round face and a short tunic; the shoe tips curl into tiny spirals.
12 minbeginner
Santa's boots sticking out of the top of a chimney
Draw the chimney's brick top first; two boots poke straight up out of it, soles to the sky, so the joke reads at a glance.
14 minbeginner
An angel tree-topper made from a triangle and two wing loops
Triangle robe, round head, then two wing loops behind the shoulders; the halo is a thin ellipse just above the head.
10 minbeginner
A cat curled up asleep on a wrapped present
Box first in a simple angled view; the cat is one loaf shape that hangs a little over the front edge.
14 minbeginner
A festive mug with steam curling up into a tree shape
The mug is a cylinder with two ellipses; the steam swirls upward and narrows into a loose triangle.
12 minbeginner
A plate of cookies and a glass of milk left out
Plate ellipse first; the glass stands behind it, so the cookies hide the bottom of the glass.
14 minbeginner
A string of big old-fashioned bulbs on a sagging wire
Draw the wire's curve first, then tilt each bulb a little differently so the string looks real rather than stamped.
12 minbeginner
A snow angel pressed into the snow, seen from above
The angel is a dent, not a drawing: shade inside the arm and leg sweeps and leave the snow around them as bare paper.
12 minbeginner

Intermediate

25 ideas

A polar bear against falling snow
Draw the bear light and the background darker to keep it white.
24 minintermediate
A bare winter tree with visible branch splits
Every branch splits into two thinner ones; never thicker.
24 minintermediate
A frozen puddle with cracked ice
Cracks radiate from one impact point; keep them straight.
18 minintermediate
A snow globe with a scene inside
The sphere distorts the scene — widen the middle, pinch the edges.
24 minintermediate
A quiet street just after snow
Everything gets rounder and lighter; edges soften.
28 minintermediate
A mountain cabin with smoke from the chimney
Smoke curls away from the wind side; keep it one direction.
26 minintermediate
A snowflake pattern repeated across a whole page
Six-fold symmetry every time, but change the arm details.
26 minintermediate
A reindeer with antlers that branch three times
Each branch thins by half; never re-thicken.
22 minintermediate
A sledge abandoned in the snow
Runner lines converge; the snow hides where they meet the ground.
22 minintermediate
A pile of three presents in different sizes
Biggest box at the back, smallest at the front, and every box turned the same way so they all share two vanishing directions.
20 minintermediate
A gingerbread house with icing along every roof edge
Box and triangular roof first; pipe the icing last as scalloped loops that follow each edge, thicker than the outline.
20 minintermediate
Santa seen from behind with a full sack over one shoulder
The sack is the biggest shape, so draw it first and fit the round figure underneath; the hat tip flops toward the sack.
20 minintermediate
A nutcracker soldier standing to attention
Stack it from cylinders: tall hat, head, jacket, legs. The jaw is a square block under the moustache.
22 minintermediate
A front-door wreath with a ribbon bow and pinecones
Draw two circles for the inner and outer edge first; the pinecones and bow sit across the ring and break both lines.
24 minintermediate
An advent calendar with three doors already open
Rule the door grid first; open doors are thin hinged rectangles with a dark gap showing behind each one.
24 minintermediate
A poinsettia seen from above
The red parts are pointed leaves in two layers; draw the top layer complete, then tuck the back layer between them.
20 minintermediate
A fireplace with stockings hung along the mantel
Mantel first, as a long flat box; hang the stockings at slightly different heights so they do not line up in a row.
26 minintermediate
A window at night with a lit tree inside
Draw the window frame first, then make everything outside the glass darker so the room glows by contrast.
28 minintermediate
A nativity scene in silhouette under a single star
Keep it to a few quiet shapes — a stable roofline, kneeling figures, a manger — in one dark tone against a pale sky.
22 minintermediate
A street lamp in falling snow
Draw the lamp and its cone of light first; the snowflakes show only inside the cone, where they are lighter than the dark around them.
22 minintermediate
Fairy lights glowing on black paper
Use a white or pale pencil: give each bulb a bright core and a soft halo that fades into the paper instead of stopping at a line.
18 minintermediate
A tinsel garland drawn without drawing every strand
Shade the overall rope shape in a mid tone, then flick short bright and dark marks across it; never draw a strand end to end.
18 minintermediate
A box wrapped in patterned paper
Draw the box first, then let the pattern change direction on each face so it bends round the corners.
22 minintermediate
A festive sweater pattern charted on squared paper
Work on a grid like a knitting chart: reindeer, trees and snowflakes are built from filled squares, not curves.
24 minintermediate
Carol singers in a row with songbooks and scarves
Line up the heads on one gentle curve, then vary only the hats, scarves and open mouths.
28 minintermediate

Advanced

10 ideas

A pinecone with overlapping scales
Scales spiral — draw two crossing spirals as guides first.
28 minadvanced
A Christmas bauble reflecting the room
Reflection wraps around the sphere and pinches at the edges.
28 minadvanced
A reindeer leaping with its legs tucked under
Draw the spine as one long arc first, then fold the front legs back and the back legs forward beneath it.
30 minadvanced
A snowy village with lit windows at dusk
Keep the sky darker than the snow; roofs are pale wedges, and only the windows get the warm colour.
40 minadvanced
A sledging hill with tiny figures at the bottom
The hill is one long curve; the figures and their tracks shrink and narrow as they get further away.
34 minadvanced
A living room on Christmas morning, seen from the floor
Set the eye level low, as if sitting on the rug; the tree and presents then tower above the horizon line.
45 minadvanced
A snowman against white snow with no outlines
Separate white from white with shadow only: a cool grey on the turning side of each ball, and the shadow it casts.
30 minadvanced
A Christmas tree lit only by its own lights
Shade the whole room darker than feels right first, then let only the branches nearest each bulb pick up light and colour.
36 minadvanced
A gold bauble with a hard highlight and dark reflections
Metal is mostly dark: put a near-black band right beside the brightest highlight and keep the gold in the mid tones.
32 minadvanced
A clear glass bauble with branches showing through it
Draw the branches behind it almost unchanged in the middle and bending near the rim, then add one small highlight and a thin bright edge.
30 minadvanced

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Each reference page pairs one checked illustration with construction order, common mistakes, a self-check, and easier or harder variations of the same exercise.

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