How to Draw a Christmas Sweater

Start near the top middle of your paper. Draw a gently curved line across, then bring a short line down on each side and connect them at the bottom. You get a wide, rounded rectangle. That is the collar. Make it thick. Ugly sweaters have big, chunky turtlenecks, and a thick collar gives you room for the ribbing in the next step.

Draw a line straight down the middle of the collar. Then add a curved line on each side of it, and one more near each end. The lines curve outward a bit as they get closer to the edges. That curve makes the collar look round, like it wraps around a neck. These short lines are the knit ribbing.

Start at one side of the collar. Draw a curve that swoops out for the shoulder, then keep going down and a little outward for the outside of the sleeve. Stop about two-thirds of the way down the page. Do the same thing on the other side. Wide shoulders make the sweater look oversized and cozy, which is what you want.

Find where each armpit would be, a little in from the shoulder line. Draw a line down from there that curves in slightly at the middle and back out near the bottom. Repeat on the other side. These two lines form the body of the sweater. The space between them and the sleeve lines becomes the arms later.

Connect the bottoms of the two body lines with a gentle curve. Let it dip a little in the middle so the sweater looks soft and slouchy instead of boxy. Now the body is a closed shape. It already reads as a sweater, even without the arms finished. Leave room underneath for the waistband.

Under the body, draw two short lines going down, like you did for the collar. Connect them with a curve that matches the one above it. That is the waistband. Fill it with short ribbing lines, the same as the collar. You can draw these lines closer together than the collar ribs. Go all the way from the left side to the right.

Go back to the armpit on one side. Draw a line that comes down and follows the outside sleeve line. Make it long, so the sleeve ends close to the waist. Then join the two sleeve lines with a small curve at the bottom. Add a cuff the same way you made the waistband: two lines, a curve, then short ribbing lines.

Repeat the same steps on the other arm. Start in the armpit, draw a line down that follows the outside line, and join the two at the bottom. Add the cuff with two short lines, a curve and ribbing. Step back and look. You have a plain, cozy sweater. It does not look ugly yet. That comes next.

Now make it ugly. Draw a snowman on the chest, a zigzag band across the top and bottom, and candy canes and diamonds on the sleeves. Then color. This sweater goes bright green with white zigzags, a white snowman and a green collar. Leave the snowman and the small shapes white at first so they pop against the green.

On the second sweater, draw a big reindeer face in the middle with antlers and a round red nose. Drape a string of lights across the shoulders and put round ornaments down the sleeves. Color the body red and the sleeves, collar and cuffs green. Add orange zigzags to the first sweater for extra clash. The uglier, the better.