You may have stumbled across this article and set of pictures because you’re searching for a cartoon snail drawing. Alternately, you may be investigating how to make easy, cute drawings of snails, yourself. Either way, you’re in luck! Welcome to the snail art party.
Drawing the Snail Shell
To begin sketching a snail, I always start with the spiral in the middle of the shell body. That swirl gesture is the most fun part of creative drawings for me! Swoop your pen or pencil round and round until you have about three or four layers of shell, then extend the line out into either a head (pictured above) or tail (pictured below). Add some creative colors, and layer on some shading.
Making the Snail Cute
To make your snail drawing cuter, here are a few tips. First, sketch the eyes nice and big and googly, and make sure there’s a glint of light (represented by a white streak) in the pupils to show kindness.
Add in a joke or two about speed or slowness, since snails are notoriously slow. (One answer to “Why is art important?” is it makes us happy, so don’t be shy about inducing a giggle or two!) Draw in a happy smile and some shiny snail slime, and then place two silly-looking antenna on top of the snail’s head.
Do Snails Have Antennae?
Um… uh oh. In researching “do snails have antennae” just now to double check whether I drew the snail anatomy correctly, I was shocked to realize that all these drawings that I’ve created here are actually inaccurate. It turns out that the eyes of the snail are actually ON top of their antennae! Noooo!
VIDEO: Drawing a Snail
Snail Eyes are ON the Antennae?!
Yes, you heard that correctly — this article contains four snail drawings where the eyes are incorrectly sketched on the little faces, instead up on to of the antennae where they should be. I messed up. Clearly I’m an artist and English teacher — not a malacologist (scientist who studies mollusks).
Well, drat. I guess you can use these snail drawings for amusement, and to make your own — just not to pass any test about real snail science?! It’s highly annoying when nature makes a choice that’s less cute than an artist’s representation. (See my octopus drawing and sea urchin drawing tutorials for similar anatomical problems.)
Is there a moral to this inaccurately-drawn snail saga? I mean, if you draw a part of an animal incorrectly, is it even still that animal? (That could be a good question to add to my drawing prompts and cute drawing ideas list.) Like, are these snail drawings at all, or have they morphed into some other imaginary creature due to the wrong eye placement? Is one of the benefits of drawing that it expands our understanding of living creatures? I eagerly await your thoughts in the comment section below.
Want more art? Check out “An Octopus Cartoon,” “A Drawing of a Rainbow,” “Drawing a Mermaid Tail,” “What Do Yellow and Purple Make?” and “A Cactus Cartoon.”
The author and artist, Lillie Marshall, is a National Board Certified Teacher of English who has been a public school educator since 2003, and an experienced Reiki practitioner since 2018. All art on this site is original and hand-drawn by Lillie. She launched DrawingsOf.com Educational Cartoons in 2020, building upon the success of her other two sites, AroundTheWorldL.com (established 2009) and TeachingTraveling.com (founded 2010). Subscribe to Lillie’s monthly newsletter, and follow @WorldLillie on social media to stay connected!
