Learning how to draw a Peacock gets easy when you start with a step by step tutorial. This one keeps the simplicity without giving up any of the cuteness.
Even though peacocks appear to be very bright in color, they are not as bright as they look. In fact, peacocks are actually brown, and their color often changes due to the reflection of light. That’s the secret of their exquisitely colorful feathers. Every section of a peacock’s feather changes its color when the light strikes from different angles.
This tutorial will show students how to draw a peacock without getting lost in too many details. Those feathers, for instance are incredibly complicated in real life, but a simple petal shape, like those of a flower, do the job just fine. They are radiating out from the peacock body and offer some great radial symmetry drawing practice.
Getting Started with Drawing Guides
The best way to get students off to a good start to any drawing lesson is to show them how to use guides as a reference point.
You may have noticed that all of the tutorials on this site have a dashed line running through the center of each step, in both horizontal and vertical directions. If students make their own centered lines on their own paper, before drawing, they will have an easy reference to follow.
For instance, as seen in Step 1 below, the U shape for the peacock belly centers on the vertical line of the paper, and sits just a bit down from the horizontal one. It’s important to get that shape in a good size and place, before adding the curve of the the peacock’s head and neck above.
Drawing skills are all about getting the size and placement of lines on paper, so having some visual reference point to get started, will always help anyone learn how to be a little more accurate.
So does that mean students need to get out a ruler to draw a big fat line down the center of their paper before they start? Goodness no, please don’t! That will most likely be hard to erase and distract from any finished art. No, simply fold the sheet of paper in half both ways, make a crease, and unfold. The beauty is that by the time the drawing is done and colored in, the creases will disappear.
And now, on to the peacock drawing project.
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Peacock Coloring Page
MATERIALS
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- Drawing Paper. Don’t substitute it with copy paper or construction paper. The surface will get fuzzy, erasing might cause holes, and the colors will generally not look as bright.
- Pencil. The Ticonderoga brand are the most reliable, make nice dark lines when you need them, and are the easiest to erase. Buying the pre-sharpened ones will save busy teachers a lot of time.
- Eraser. Large ones you can hold in your hand do a much better job than just the pencil tip erasers, especially when erasing leftover pencil lines after tracing.
- Black Sharpie Marker. These fine point permanent markers make nice black lines, have a good tip for coloring, and never bleed when they get wet. Use them in areas with good ventilation and add extra paper underneath for table protection.
- Prang Crayons. These are a bit softer than other crayons so they sometimes look like oil pastels. They also have a some nice brown shades that Crayola does not have in the smaller boxes.
- Crayola Crayons. The reliable brand that always works well. The 24 pack has some of my favorite golden orange and yellow colors, and seem a bit richer than ones Prang has.
DIRECTIONS
Time needed: 1 hour.
How to draw a Peacock in 9 Easy Steps
- Make guidelines. Draw the belly.
- Add the neck and head.
- Add wings, face and feet.
- Draw two bottom feathers.
- Draw center back feather.
- Add feather to either side.
- Fill in with two more feathers.
- Draw spots on feathers. Add ground line.
- Trace and color with crayons.
Peacock Drawings by Students
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