Jellyfish drawing for kids with pencil step by step

Content

There are a huge number of different inhabitants in the seas and oceans. Jellyfish are very interesting creatures that have an unusual shape, can glow and are of great interest to researchers.

The drawing of a jellyfish is quite simple, so it is suitable for children. In addition to drawing, the child will be able to learn something new.

A few words about jellyfish

In the process of drawing, the child will be interested to learn more about these creatures. Jellyfish consist of a large dome, inside which the digestive system, nerve endings and other organs are located.

Jellyfish feed mainly on plankton and are themselves partly considered plankton. Therefore, they often become dinner for plankton-eating fish. Although they do not always succeed.

The thing is that jellyfish have special stinging cells that are located on their tentacles. With their help, jellyfish are able to sense objects and also sting. At the same time, these organisms consist almost entirely of water.

These unusual sea creatures have a jelly-like body, but it cannot flow through your fingers. To swim, the jellyfish fills its dome with water and then pushes it out. That's why it moves so unusually.

There are also some interesting facts about this type of plankton:

If a jellyfish stings a person, the bite will last a very long time and be very painful.
These creatures live for a very short period of time - from 2-3 hours to several months.
It is believed that jellyfish have existed on Earth for more than 650 million years.
The jellyfish is capable of tracking its prey for a long time and even pursuing it.

Jellyfish have a very unusual body. Experts have not yet fully studied these creatures. Interest is fueled by the fact that jellyfish are often found in mythology, for example, the Gorgon Medusa.

What you need for drawing

Jellyfish (a drawing for children will be discussed below) is a fairly simple idea for starting to learn fine art. Therefore, a beginner's arsenal should have a minimum set of tools.

Drawing tool	Description
Simple pencil	For drawing, it is best to use a medium-soft pencil. Domestic manufacturers label such pencils MT, and foreign ones HB. This is an intermediate option that is ideal for both creating basic contours and drawing shadows.
Paper	There are papers with different types of surfaces on sale. It is better to choose sheets of medium grain. It is more convenient to draw on such material. You also need to choose thicker sheets, like in a drawing album or buy it right away.
Eraser	For a beginner artist, a classic eraser with 2 sides (soft and hard) is suitable. More experienced artists prefer to additionally use a nag. This is a special flexible eraser. Its shape can be changed as desired. Thanks to this, the nag is perfect for removing small parts of the drawing.

To color the image later, you can use colored pencils, paints, or markers. Some people also outline the images using a thin black marker. This is a popular trick that is often used in animation to give the image more definition.

Simple jellyfish

It is worth starting with simpler drawings that will help you understand the shape of the jellyfish, as well as learn how to hold a pencil and draw lines.

The stages of drawing are as follows:

First, draw the base of the sea creature. It is a semicircle with smooth lines.
Next, draw 2 wavy lines down. They will be the basis for the first tentacles.

Jellyfish drawing for kids with pencil step by step — Jellyfish drawing for kids

Add another tentacle on the right. It can be drawn a little closer to the middle one.
On the dome of the jellyfish, add several unfinished ovals connected to each other.
Now finish drawing the tentacles. This time the lines should be more jagged.
Now detail the third tentacle.

The jellyfish is ready. You can leave it as is or paint it. To give your child an idea of what colors to paint the picture in, you can show him a photo of real jellyfish or watch some educational program about these sea creatures with him before drawing.

Jellyfish with eyes

A jellyfish (a drawing for children can be done with a simple pencil or marker) can look more interesting and fun. For example, you can offer the child to draw a cartoon character with eyes.

This is a very simple drawing, to create which you will need:

First draw a rounded dome, add some lines going down to indicate tentacles.
Now the tentacles need to be given volume. Therefore, draw additional wavy lines around the guides. They should not be straight. Also at this stage, the eyes are drawn (even though jellyfish do not have them in the usual sense).

To do this, it is enough to draw 2 large ovals, and inside them 2 more, each subsequent one should be smaller than the previous one. It remains to add 3 short lines, which will indicate eyelashes.

The jellyfish is ready. It remains to paint it. If you leave a white highlight on the dome, it will create the impression that the head of the sea creature is shining. It is also worth paying attention to how the pupils of the jellyfish are painted in the picture below.

To make them look more interesting, you need to leave 2 triangular areas at the top of the pupils unpainted. You can choose any color as the main color. For example, deep blue looks very interesting.

Jellyfish with thin tentacles

There are many versions of drawing this sea creature. A child may be interested in creating such a stylized jellyfish, which looks a little transparent, as in the real world.

To draw such an aquatic inhabitant:

First, create a base. To do this, draw a small circle. To make this process easier, you can ask your child to use a compass.

If the child is still young, it is better not to give him such prickly objects and help him yourself at this stage or leave the circle that he draws, even if it is not quite even.

Inside the finished circle, closer to its bottom, you need to draw a horizontal, slightly curved line.
At the next stage, erase the lower part with an eraser. You will get a kind of mushroom cap.
In the next step, draw a skirt from the bottom line. It will separate the jellyfish dome from the tentacles.
It's time to move on to the tentacles themselves. First, draw the 2 outer ones. To do this, draw lines down and round them slightly, as shown in the image below.

Now we can move on to the central tentacles. They should be a little longer and not so rounded. The lines will be only slightly wavy to emphasize the lightness and airiness of these parts of the jellyfish.
Inside the “skirt” drawn earlier, draw another line that will run closer to the bottom.
Although the jellyfish is monochromatic, its interior is usually slightly darker, as this is where the aquatic creature's organs are located. To emphasize transparency, add a semicircle inside the dome and add another line at the top of the "skirt".

All that's left is to color the image. It's not necessary to try to give the drawing transparency in its usual sense. You can create a stylization. For example, if you use pink and blue colors, you can mark the outer zone of the jellyfish's "head", which will seem transparent.

The tentacles can also be painted in these 2 colors. The shades should be more delicate, not so saturated.

Medusa Gorgon

A drawing of a jellyfish will be interesting for beginner artists, those who have not yet tried to draw people. For older children, you can choose a more complex image. For example, they will be interested in immersing themselves in ancient mythology.

Medusa Gorgon is a popular character from ancient Greek myths. It is about a monster that is half woman and half Medusa. But instead of tentacles, there are dozens of evil snakes on her head. It was believed that just looking at this monster turned a person into stone.

This step-by-step tutorial shows the basics of drawing a person and creating guide lines. This technique is usually taught to children in art schools.

To depict Medusa the Gorgon, you will need:

It is necessary to take into account that this character is a collective image, so it can be depicted at your own discretion. It is worth starting with the head. It should be an oval. From it you need to draw a twisting line down, which will be a guide for the body and tail of the monster with the face of a beautiful woman.
After this, stepping back a little from the head, you need to outline the upper part of the body of Medusa-Gorgon. Using small circles, draw the main shoulder and elbow joints. They need to be connected with lines.
Now you need to make markings for the face. To do this, draw 2 intersecting slightly rounded lines. At their intersection will be the nose, also the upper line will allow you to more easily determine the location of the eyes.
Next, add volume to the chest and arms. The lower part of the character is a snake tail. To complete the image, you can add a bow and arrow to the character's hands. At this stage, they should be just simple lines, as shown below.

Now draw the base for the eyes and mouth. Also draw the wriggling lines coming from the head of Medusa-Gorgon. These will be evil snakes. You can complete the image by drawing a belt on the waist. It will allow you to separate the human body and the snake tail.
The next step is to detail the monster's face. You can use images of beautiful women as a basis. For example, you can draw a beautiful and neat nose, plump lips.

The guide lines will help you understand where exactly the parts of the face should be located with this head position. If necessary, you can practice drawing the face on a separate sheet of paper.

The next step is to create Medusa Gorgon's hairstyle, which consists of snakes. Some of them are intertwined, while others simply twist, heading upwards. The main thing is not to get lost in the details and not to get confused in such intersections. Each snake needs to have a head drawn.

Now it's time to move on to a more detailed depiction of the upper, human part of the body. To do this, you need to add lines on the neck, outlines of protruding bones.

The top of Medusa's clothing is very light, so the curves of the body should be visible underneath. The fabric itself should also have characteristic folds.

At this step, you need to highlight the hands. The left palm is folded almost into a fist. On the one hand, this simplifies the task. But it is important not to break the proportions. If the hand is too big, it will look ridiculous. But a too small fist will also start to catch the eye.

You also need to connect the lines between the main joints, making them smoother. When everything is ready, it remains to delete the guide lines created in the first steps.

The bow and arrow are in the foreground, so it is advisable to draw them very carefully. You need to take into account the position of the body and the angle at which the weapon should be positioned. When everything is ready, you need to highlight the hips a little so that they do not merge with the upper part of the body.

It remains to paint the finished image. Since the drawing looks quite realistic, it is worth adding additional shadows and highlights. To obtain a more interesting effect, it is most convenient to work with simple pencils of different softness.

With the help of bold ones you can highlight the darkest shadows. To create smooth transitions, you can smudge the shadows a little with your finger or a special sponge.

The technique of partial hatching is also suitable for such a drawing. This means that to indicate shadows, you only need to add hatching in places where the light does not fall.

To better understand how light and shadow work in images, just take an object and place it next to a light source (for example, a table lamp).

Realistic jellyfish with complex tentacles

Medusa is not the most difficult drawing for children. But if the child has already mastered the simplest images, but is not yet ready to try to depict Medusa Gorgon, then you can offer him to draw a more realistic aquatic inhabitant. You can use a photo from the Internet as a basis.

The drawing sequence is as follows:

First, you need to draw an inclined line that will be the center of the image. In this example, the jellyfish is swimming at an angle, so without additional markings, it will be difficult to draw it proportionally. Using this line as a guide, you need to sketch the jellyfish's dome and "skirt".
After this, you need to outline the upper part a little more boldly.
Next, you can move on to detailing the tentacles. In this example, they are more complex. They are thin at the top, but then there is a thickening that resembles a deformed tree leaf. Such thickenings need to be drawn for each tentacle, including the back ones.

Now all that remains is to add thin shoots with small balls at the end.

The result is a very unusual jellyfish that really does look like a real one.

It remains to delete the guide line and move on to coloring. At this stage, you can also start from the photo. Accordingly, blue shades will do. If you use a darker blue or light blue, you will be able to highlight the shadows on the sides of the dome.

Champignon jellyfish

There are jellyfish that really look like neat mushrooms. Therefore, when drawing a sea creature, you can start from the image of champignons, if it seems easier to the child. If you look at the first steps of drawing such a jellyfish, it seems that this is a section of a mushroom.

Once the base of the dome is ready, you can add a "skirt" like on mushrooms and thin tentacles in the form of numerous wavy lines. In this example, a central guide line is also used. It will help to create a symmetrical image. When everything is ready, it is enough to delete this line.

There is also a simpler version of drawing such a jellyfish, if the previous one turned out to be difficult for the child. In this case, you also need to draw the upper part of the mushroom, and then just add 4 tentacles.

To color such simple images, you can use felt-tip pens, colored pencils. If you add a thicker black outline, it will be easier for the child to color the image without going beyond its boundaries.

Funny jellyfish

The jellyfish (a drawing for children should be, first of all, interesting) can even smile. This idea will appeal to younger children.

To create such an image:

First, place the album sheet vertically and start creating the shape of the jellyfish using a simple pencil. It can be made more elongated, focusing not on the tentacles, but on the head of the creature.

It turns out to be a kind of bell with a wavy line at the bottom. The tentacles are quite short, tapering towards the ends.

Now outline the mouth and eyes of the character. To make the sheet not look empty, you can add stars. This will be a company of other sea creatures. You can tell the child who the starfish are or let him draw the decorative elements that he himself wants.
Now detail the eyes. They are quite large. To create them, you need to draw smaller circles inside the larger ones and color them. Also add eyelashes, which are drawn using short straight lines.

Since the jellyfish lives in water, you can supplement the illustration with several bubbles of different sizes.

The next step is to start coloring the image. In this example, watercolor paints are used. First, you need to start with the largest details of the illustration. That is, fill the background. Since the jellyfish is swimming in the water, you need to use blue, blue and purple paints.

You can add color by generously wetting the brush in water, then dipping it a little in paint and dropping it on the sheet in the right place. As a result, such drops will begin to spread and merge, creating a very interesting gradient.

Now we need to work on the jellyfish itself. To make it stand out against the blue background, but look harmonious, paint the jellyfish's body scarlet, adding a little dark red in those places where shadows need to be indicated. The stars will be yellow, and the eyes inside should be left white and only the pupils should be painted dark.

At the final stage, you can splash the image. Then the illustration will be supplemented even more. But you need to do this when the main image is dry. Otherwise, the splashes will start to spread and mix with other, already applied, paints.

Cartoon jellyfish

Children like cartoons in which the characters have funny grimaces, and they themselves only vaguely resemble real animals, fish, and birds.

Therefore, you can interest your child with the following simple image:

Start with the dome of the cartoon jellyfish. In this case, you will need to make 2 rounded protrusions for the eyes. The body itself should be more shapeless. In this example, straight lines are not welcome. After that, draw fairly large eyes and a grinning smile.
Now you need to draw several long lines down from the dome. This jellyfish has very long, not pointed tentacles. The lines should be wavy. But shorter and thicker limbs will also look interesting.
After that, add as many tentacles as you want. It will be interesting to watch both a few shoots and an uncountable number of them.

All that's left is to color it all. Since the jellyfish is cartoonish, use a variety of colors. For example, it will look unusual if you line the dome with small lines and then color it in all the colors to make a rainbow.

The child can also come up with a more interesting or complex ornament. You can add water bubbles, seaweed or other elements around it to create a complete composition.

Drawing a jellyfish for the little ones

A very young child may not be interested and may find it difficult to create the pictures shown above. In this case, you can offer a simplified and very colorful version.

This is a friendly jellyfish, for which you can come up with a whole story to further interest the child. If you later come up with what else such a character can do besides swimming, then the child will be able to create a whole series of drawings.

To draw you only need to follow a few simple steps:

First create a dome and draw a wavy line at the bottom, then add another one to give the future image more volume.
Now you need to add a small mouth stretched in a smile and eyes. To depict them, you need to depict 2 large circles, and then add 2 more inside them. They should be shifted closer to the bottom line. Color the circles inside, leaving small areas unfilled to add highlights.
Only the tentacles remain. They are quite short and rounded. The number of tentacles can also be any. The main thing is that the length of such processes is approximately the same, and they are in slightly different positions.

All that remains is to color the jellyfish. It will be more interesting for the child to use bright colors. Therefore, you can use felt-tip pens for coloring. The combination of blue and red colors looks beautiful. To highlight the tentacles, you can color them purple.

This is a simple example of a jellyfish drawing. It is difficult to choose the complexity of the image, since for some children it is easier to create detailed images, and they already have basic drawing skills.

Others may find it difficult to try creating illustrations with guidelines right away. For them, drawings of funny and cartoonish jellyfish are suitable.

Video about drawing

Jellyfish drawing for kids: