Cactus Drawing: Easy, Cute Instructions

How can nature drawings of something as spiky as cacti be so cute? We’re about to find out in this easy cactus drawing tutorial!

As background, my name is Ms. Marshall, and I’m an artist and teacher who hand-draws each and every illustration on this site — including our recent tree drawing party. On to today’s lesson!

Cactus Drawing

1. Sketch the shape (without the spikes yet).

Though there are many types of cacti on this wonderful planet, I find the most fun one to draw is something along the lines of a Saguaro Cactus. Why?

It’s easy to anthropomorphize because there are basically two arms and a “head!” As always, I suggest sketching these first curves in erasable pencil so you can get the shape exactly how you want it — then add in black and white ink.

2. Add the cactus drawing spikes, and the desert in back.

The key elements that make cacti look convincing are ample spikes (see our sea urchin drawing for inspiration) and rolling tan sand dunes all around. Check out how I did this, below.

3. Put in color, then shading and highlights.

Dust off your “what colors make green” tutorial, because as you add color, you’ll want some shade of the color. In reality, cacti can be all sorts of olive, yellow, or brown-tinged greens, so go wild.

Next, to make it all look three-dimensional, add a darker version of the green along the edges, then some lighter highlights in the middle. We used this same technique to make our cute mushroom drawing pop out of the page!

4. Include texture and sun.

For the desert (see desert vs. dessert for a related lesson) to look more realistic, add some “gritty noise” in the form of darker brown dots indicating sand. To show the heat of the scene, create a giant blazing sun in one corner.

Just make sure the placement of the sun correlates with where you put the highlights! Now, just as we did with our pumpkin drawing, let’s see how this process art looks, being draw step by step by me in a slightly different version.

(Fun fact: This cactus sketch shown above was the first ever piece of art I published on this site, when I launched Drawings Of… in 2020!)

Cactus Drawing, in Sum

I hope this cactus drawing tutorial has been useful and inspiring! If you want another tri-pronged art prompt, check out my lesson on how to make a jester hat drawing…