Step by step instructions for drawing a cute dog’s head with big eyes, pointy ears, and a cute snout.

How to Draw a Dog Face — Drawing of a Dog Face

Not all animal drawing lessons need to fit the entire animal on one sheet of paper. Sometimes it’s fun to just focus on the part that is the most expressive, like the face. This tutorial features a simple dog with a cute smile, wagging tongue and big adorable ears.

If you notice that your students tend to not use their entire paper, and are drawing on the small side, this close up view of a dog face will mix things up for them. Drawing small is a natural tendency that many beginner artists start out with. It’s kind of like a comfortable approach they are used to, so it helps to give them a project that asks them to think BIG, and fill up their entire sheet of paper.

Working with Drawing Guides

The best way to get students off to a good start to any drawing project 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 center guides that are showing as both a vertical line and a horizontal line. If students make lines like those on their own paper, before drawing, they will have some extra help in seeing where to begin their drawing.

For instance, as seen in Step 1 below, the sketch of this dog face starts on the center line, halfway down the the top box. A large curve is drawn that ends half way down the center of the bottom box.

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 use their pencil to draw big fat lines 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 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 our drawing project.

Preview of the Step by Step Dog Face Tutorial

Open the Dog Face PDF Tutorial

RECOMMENDED MATERIALS

DIRECTIONS

Time needed: 45 minutes.

How to Draw a Dog Face

Draw half of the head.
Add a matching side.
Draw the dog’s eyes, dog nose and mouth. Add extra circles for the highlights in the eyes.
Add the tongue and face lines.
Draw the two matching ears.
Add scruffy fur on the cheeks.
Draw the neck and shoulders.
Erase the gray lines.
Trace with a marker and color.