Pine Tree Drawing: Easy, Cute Instructions

While creating our classic tree drawing tutorial, I found myself realizing: there are so many other types of forest-growers to depict! Thus, I was motivated to sit down to sketch this simple pine tree drawing lesson for you.

As background, my name is Ms. Marshall, and I’m an artist and teacher who hand-draws each and every illustration on this site, using a cute, cartoon line art style — including our recent easy cactus drawing. On to today’s step by step tutorial!

Pine Tree Drawing

1. Sketch the tall triangular shape.

Though there are many other types of coniferous evergreen trees (such as fir and spruce), and various shapes of pine trees in nature, in our artwork today, we will be going for the classic tall triangular shape, with layered “tiers” of branches, as shown above.

I highly recommend starting this sketch with erasable pencil first, then adding black and white ink once you get the lines how you want them. The result will be visually similar to our Christmas tree drawing, but without the holiday decorations!

2. Add contrasting colors.

Naturally, our tree itself will be some form of viridian color (my favorite!), but what shade should we make the background in order to make our centerpiece “pop” towards the viewer? For this we need a little color theory…

On the classic RYB color wheel, the opposite of green is red, so we can leverage this fact to help add excitement to our piece. How? Instead of having a blue sky, use sunset colors like pink (aka, light red)! Isn’t that pretty?

3. Use highlights and shading for depth.

As we saw with our mushroom drawing, adding darker shading around the sides and lighter highlights in the middle is key to creating a three-dimensional look. Don’t forget the shadow under each “tier” of branches.

Congratulations — our tree is now complete! Now, just as we did for our cherry drawing, let’s see how the whole process looks in a time-lapse art video of my drawing…

Pine Tree Drawing, in Sum

I hope this simple pine tree drawing tutorial has been enjoyable and useful. For an extension of the idea, check out my lesson on evergreen wreath drawing, and do be in touch for requests on what else you would like me to sketch and explain. Do share!