How to draw a baby elephant.
Draw an elephant calf.

Drawing baby Elephants.

How to draw a baby elephant.

Standing baby elephant.

In this tutorial on how to draw a baby elephant, I will show you an easy way to achieve it.

Baby elephants body

To begin drawing your baby elephant you will first need to draw a large circle. Once you have drawn a circle you will then need to draw an oval at one end as shown below.

You will then need to join them together to form the shape of your baby elephants body, as shown.

Notice how I have used the lines to define the shape of the elephants back. I did this by first adding a curving line from the top centre of both the circle and the oval.

First, start from the top of the oval which will form your elephants head. Using a gentle inward curve draw a line that will run above the circle and which then curves back down to meet it just past the midpoint at the top. This will form the shape of the elephants back as shown above.

You will then need to start at just above the bottom centre of the oval as shown with an X, draw a small curving line up and back with a small kink at the end which forms the elephant's mouth. Continue your line by curving it down and outward until it meets the lower side of the circle forming the elephant's neck and stomach.

You now have your basic body shape and are ready for the next step.

How to draw a baby elephants basic shape.

Legs, Trunks, and tail.

Now you are ready to add the legs, tail, and trunk to your baby elephant drawing.

Adding the legs is easier than it looks. The first thing to do is to start at the back of the elephant's body marked XX. Firstly you will be extending the line of the circle down at a slight angle to form the back of the knee Y, and then slightly back and down again until you reach the foot, Z. You can then add the rest of your baby elephants legs as shown above. The front leg is also very simple. It is basically two straight lines connected at their base to form a rectangle.

Once you have added the legs you can then add the elephant's trunk by extending the line on the outside edge of the oval marked A down to the end of the trunk, B which will be just below the elephant's knee. Next add a similar line beside it that starts at the edge of the curve that you drew earlier as point X, and follows a similar line down to the end of the trunk, C, where you can join them together with a small oval which forms the end of the elephant's trunk.

Once this is done add the tail as shown above. Again all you are doing is extending the line of your circle and then returning with a similar line back to the elephant's body.

The head.

To get the basic head shape you will need to slightly reduce the size of your oval by continuing your line from the point marked X up and round so that it is touching the edge of your circle. Continue your new line up, over and back down to the outside edge of your existing oval. Make sure that the top of the new oval sits inside the original as shown.

Your Baby elephant is now starting to take shape so it is now time to begin adding the detail.

Adding the detail to your baby elephant.

The next thing to do is to add the ears and the eyes. In the example, you can see that that only one eye is visible. This is because an elephant's eyes are positioned on the side of its head just back from the trunk. Its ears are also positioned on the side of its head starting approximately a third of the way in at the top of its head and then sweeping out and down to about half way down its head and then back in. In the example, the ears are almost rectangles but the lines have been altered to form the shape of the elephant's ears. Once you have added the ears you can add the elephant's eye. This is just a very small triangle, or V shape if you prefer with a small eyebrow positioned above it.

You are now ready to bring your drawing to life.

The first thing you will need to do is to tidy up your picture by removing all the unwanted outlines with an eraser. Then add in any missing lines, for example at the top of the elephant's legs where they meet the body and on the elephant's trunk, as shown below.

If you are struggling to draw your baby elephant outline click on the image to get a free elephant template. Once you have tidied up your picture you can then begin to add your colour and tone to it.

It does not matter if you use paints, crayons, or any other media to finish your picture. Enjoy doing it and be proud of what you have achieved. If you just want to produce a pencil sketch of your baby elephant then it may help to visit our tutorial on How to draw an elephant. for a more detailed description of how to bring your elephant to life.