How to Draw a Duck – Easy Duck Drawing

Our “how to draw a duck” tutorial starts with the usual very easy base sketch. In fact, this is just a single line.

Draw a curved number “2” with a rounded-off bottom corner. The upper arch is smaller, and the lower one is a bit wider and larger, bending upwards.

Next up, sketch an oval for the duck’s head into the upper part of the base curve. Add a face cross – two slightly curved lines that will help us place the duck’s facial features.

Then draw another egg-shaped oval into the lower half of the guideline – this will be the duck’s body.

Sketch the duck’s front wing next. The front curve of the wing follows the body shape, and then it merges into a pointy tip near the end of the body oval.

We cannot see much from the back wing, so sketch it as a flattened curved “V” shape that sits on the upper body line. Add a little curved transition line to attach the wing to the front of the body.

Finally, sketch the duck’s tail – this is a wide “V” sitting at the tip of the body oval, slightly pointed up and curved to attach to the body outline.

Let’s sketch the duck’s beak next.

Start with the  beak line, which looks like a laid down question mark “?”. Draw it just from the vertical face line, starting a touch under where the two face cross lines meet.

Then add the upper beak line. That is basically two small “C” curve ends for the cheeks, joined by a line with a bump up over the face cross centre.

Now, here we are starting to cross into the cartoon drawing. We will draw the lower part of the duck’s beak as a smiling mouth.

Draw the upper smile line first. Then add the lower curved “V” line to define the “chin” or the bottom of the open mouth.

Finish off the mouth with the details: Add a small cheekline ending. Then, double up the lower part of the mouth to suggest the lower lip.

Now that our duck drawing turned into a cartoon, let’s give it two large cartoony eyes.

Those are two narrow half ovals, with a small oval inside for the eye pupil. Place them along the vertical faceline. Notice the left eye is partially hiding behind the right one.

Then draw two “C” shaped curves for the duck’s cheeks.

Finally, connect the duck’s head to the body by drawing the two lines for the neck.

Since we have done all the hard work in the sketch, simply outline the sketch lines to draw the duck’s face and beak.

Start with the eyes, and color in the pupils, leaving out a small blank streak for the eye shine.

Then outline the beak and mouth lines, following the sketch.

Next, we will draw the duck’s head, with a few improvements.

First, add an eyebrow line above the eyes – the shape follows the top of the eye ovals at some distance.

Next, outline the cheeks straight from the sketch.

Finally, draw the head. Here, we are adding a little “hairdo” on the top – a few small “V”-shaped scruffs, plus similar little zig-zag lines halfway down the back of the head to suggest some feather hair.

Next, follow the sketch and draw one smooth line to outline the neck and the lower part of the body.

Then, outline the remaining neckline.

Here is another improvement to our base sketch.

Draw the front base shapes for the duck’s wings following the sketch. Then, add extra “V”-shaped zig-zags to the pointed tips of the wings to suggest feathers.

Similarly, draw the duck’s tail, splitting the base shape into three “V”-shaped feathers.

Our duck drawing is almost done. Here are just the final touch-up details to complete our “how to draw a duck” tutorial.

Add two curved lines on the duck’s neck – this will be the white marking strip.

Finally, draw a few “waves” around our duck to suggest it is swimming in the water.

Here is the result of our “how to draw a duck” tutorial: the cleaned-up duck drawing outline once we have erased the sketch lines.

With the puffy cheeks, big friendly smile, and large eyes, this is definitely a cartoon duck drawing.

Finally, here is the duck drawing colored in. Although colorful, we used realistic colors for our cartoon duck drawing, inspired by the male mallard duck.

The duck’s head is green. It has a white neck ring with a dark brown chest. The body and wings are gray, with orange-brown and black feathers on the tips to add some interest.

And that is the end of our how to draw a duck tutorial. If you are up for more, you can draw a cute duckling to swim along with your duck next. We hope you have enjoyed this easy duck drawing!