What are easy Christmas things to draw?

A pine tree as stacked triangles, a stocking with a slight sag at the toe, a wrapped present with off-centre ribbon, or a gingerbread person with piped icing. Each is around fifteen minutes and works on a card.

How do I draw a candy cane stripe correctly?

The stripe is a spiral wrapping a cylinder, so it appears to narrow as it approaches each edge of the cane and widen across the middle. Straight diagonal bands are the giveaway that it was drawn flat.

Do not draw the snow — draw everything around it darker and leave the snow as untouched paper. For falling snow, dot sparingly and only against the dark areas; dots across the whole page just read as noise.

How do I draw a reflective bauble?

The reflection wraps around the sphere, so straight lines in the room become curves that pinch tight near the bauble's edge. Include a small hard highlight and a dark reflected edge, and keep the middle relatively simple.

What should I draw for a homemade Christmas card?

One subject, large, with a closed silhouette: a single bauble, a wreath, a robin, or a stocking. Scenes with several elements shrink badly, and a card is small.

How do I draw a snowflake that looks right?

Build on six-fold symmetry, not eight. Draw one arm in full detail, then repeat it exactly six times around a centre point using light guide lines at sixty-degree intervals.

Christmas

26 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

26 ideas · 2 illustrated

There are card-sized doodles here as well as longer studies, and a few snow scenes where the real exercise is drawing white by darkening everything around it.

Generate one instead Browse illustrated references

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

26 ideas, each with a starting point

Quick card-friendly doodles first, then the reflective and snow-scene studies.

Beginner

15 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

Intermediate

9 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

Advanced

2 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

With a picture

2 of these have an illustrated reference

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