An elf face under a tall pointed hat, all of it built on one circle. The ears go on at step two while that circle is still bare, the hat leans over at step three, and the collar with its points gets a step of its own. Six panels on the first sheet, then a page of empty boxes. Whatever is already on the paper prints grey, so the black lines in a panel are only the ones to add.
The ears go on before the hat
Two pointed ears and a pointed hat are the whole of what says elf, and the ears are the harder of the two because they have to meet the circle in the right place. Put them too high and the face turns into a cat. Put them too low and they hang off the jaw.
They belong at the widest part of the circle, halfway down the side, and each one is a narrow triangle lying on its side: a short root against the circle, a long point reaching up and out. The root straddles the widest point rather than sitting above or below it, so the two ears come out level with each other without anybody having to measure.
That is why they are step two and not step four. A circle with nothing else on it is the only moment when halfway down the side is obvious. Once the hat band crosses the top of the circle the eye has a second line to judge against, and the join turns into a guess.
Six steps from a bare circle to a finished face
Step one is 'Draw a big circle low on the page. That is the face.' Low down, because this hat is taller than the head and needs somewhere to go.
Step two adds the ears. Step three carries two shapes in one instruction, 'Give her a tall pointed hat. A band across, then the hat on top': a flat band laid over the top of the circle first, then the hat standing on that band, curving over to one side and finishing in a point with a bobble at the tip. In that order the hat sits on the head. The other way round it hovers above it.
Step four runs two curves down from under the face to the bottom of the box for the shoulders. Step five lays the pointed collar across them. Step six is the face, deliberately last and deliberately small: two eyes, a little nose between them and a curve for the smile.
What the pointed collar is for
The collar gets a whole step to itself, which looks generous for a zigzag three points wide. It earns it. Without the collar the drawing is a child in a party hat; with it the shoulders belong to an elf.
It runs straight across the shoulders a little below the chin, points downwards, and all three points are the same depth as each other. That evenness matters more than the size does. A zigzag with one deep point and two shallow ones stops reading as a collar and starts reading as a rip in the paper.
If a child wants to change one thing on this drawing, the collar is the thing to change. Scallops instead of points, or a row of small circles down the middle for buttons, and the elf becomes theirs rather than a copy of the panel.
Questions
- How do you draw an elf step by step?
- A circle for the face low on the page, a long pointed ear on each side, a band and a tall pointed hat above it, two shoulders, a collar with points across them, then the eyes, nose and smile. Six steps, one shape at a time.
- Where do the elf ears join the circle?
- Halfway down the side, at the widest part of the circle, with the root of each ear straddling that point. Higher up and the face reads as a cat; lower down and the ears hang off the jaw rather than the head.
- Why are the ears drawn before the hat?
- Because a bare circle is the only time a child can see where halfway down the side is. Once the hat band has crossed the top of the circle there is a second line to judge against and the two ears come out at different heights.
- How do you draw an elf hat?
- A flat band across the top of the face first, then the hat standing on the band, curving over to one side and ending in a point with a round bobble. The band is what holds the hat on the head instead of letting it float above.
- Is the elf a girl or a boy?
- Neither is fixed. The instructions printed under the panels say her, but nothing in the six shapes decides it: change the collar, add a fringe under the hat band or leave the face plain and the drawing goes either way.