This cartoon sloth comes from Art for Kids Hub. Rob and his son draw it side by side, slow and steady, the way a sloth would want it. Your sloth hangs upside down from a branch by its long arms and claws, with a round smiling face, dark eye patches and a little tuft of spiky hair. It takes about ten minutes, and every shape is a circle, a line or an upside-down U.
You need a black marker, a sheet of paper and colored pencils for the finish.
What makes a sloth drawing look like a sloth
Three details do most of the work. The dark patches running from the eyes to the side of the head are the big one. Without them, the face reads as a monkey or a bear. The second is the pose. Sloths spend their lives hanging, so the arms go up and the body sags below the branch like a hammock. The third is the claws. Two or three hooked V shapes over the branch tell everyone this animal is holding on.
Keep the face to one side of the page. The body needs room to swing out below it.
Markers, paper and colors
A fine point black permanent marker gives the bold outline you see in the video. Plain printer paper is fine for practice. For a picture you want to keep, a heavier drawing pad stops the ink from bleeding through and holds up to a lot of coloring. Nervous about mistakes? Sketch in pencil first and trace over it.
The video colors with colored pencils in five shades: medium brown for the body, light brown for the face, dark brown for the eye patches, black for the claws and green for the leaves. A soft blue scribbled around the sloth makes it pop off the page.
Make it your own
Once the basic sloth works, change it up. Draw a baby sloth hanging on its mom's belly. Add a second branch and a whole family in a row. Give the sloth a tiny hat, or turn the smile into a sleepy face with closed eyes. Kids who love sloths might also enjoy making one from yarn with this crochet sloth pattern.
For a classroom or back-to-school poster, have each kid draw a sloth on the same long branch across a big sheet of paper. Hang it in the hallway and count the sloths.
Sloth drawing ideas to try next
- A whole rainforest tree, using the tips in how to draw a tree.
- A sleepy sloth curled up in the fork of a branch.
- A sloth next to a cartoon cat or a bird on the same branch.
- A sloth eating a leaf, with one arm down and the leaf in its claws.
Common sloth drawing problems
- The face looks like a raccoon. Keep the eye patches thin and slanting down toward the side of the head.
- The sloth looks like it is standing. Make the arms tall and draw the branch through the top of them.
- The body looks flat. Let the back curve dip low, like a big smile.
- The coloring hides the face. Color the face lighter than the body and leave the eye shine white.
New to drawing? Start with how to draw for the basics.
