How to Draw a Cartoon Brown Bear
(the Easy Way)

Do you want to learn how to draw a cartoon brown bear? Don’t get grizzly! Impress your family and friends with your supreme sketching skills when you follow our simple steps and learn how to draw a cartoon brown bear. Put a pencil in your paw and let’s get started!

STEP-1: The Bear Necessities –Drawing the Basic Shapes of our Cartoon Bear
Bears have always played a big part in popular culture, including the famous Disney film, Brother Bear. Now, it’s your turn to add to this rich heritage by learning how to draw a cartoon brown bear! First of all, draw a circle for the head, followed by an intersecting oval shape on its side. Then, draw a much larger oval or egg shape for our bear’s body. These will form the ‘bear’ basics for our awesome illustration!

STEP-2: ‘Paws’ for Thought – Adding more Detail to our Furry Friend
Now you’ve drawn the basic shapes of our cartoon bear, it’s time to add some more shapes to bring our furry friend to life! Starting with the head, draw one oval on the left-hand side – this will eventually form our cartoon bear’s ear. 

Then, draw a series of three smaller ovals on the right-hand side as in our illustration. Moving on to the body, use the large oval you drew in the first step as your basis for our cartoon bear’s back – draw an arc shape which meets the body. 

Finally, finish off by drawing another oval towards the bottom of the body, which will eventually become our bear’s paw.

STEP-3: Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? An Awesome Illustration taking Shape!
Having got your paws on the basic outline of our cartoon bear, it’s time to make our cuddly critter take shape with some all-important details. Remember the oval shape on its side that we drew in the first step? This is our cartoon bear’s snout, so let’s now add the nose on top as in our illustration. 

For our next step in how to draw a cartoon brown bear, add an arm by drawing two vertical lines which meet the oval shape towards the bottom of the body. Once you’ve done this, let’s ‘paws’ for thought and draw our cartoon bear’s paw! Finally, draw some curved lines at the bottom of the body – these will eventually become our cartoon bear’s legs.

STEP-4: Making our Cartoon Bear look ‘Fur’ Real
You almost know how to draw a cartoon brown bear. Our cartoon bear is really starting to take shape now and will soon be ready to go out into the forest! 

Let’s add some more details to bring our furry friend to life! Using the small oval shapes on the head as your basis, draw the ears in, remembering to make the line jagged to represent fur. You can also draw the inside of the ear at this stage – bears have a better sense of hearing than us humans! 

Now, draw the eyes by sketching in two oval shapes in the middle of the head.We’ll also add some more details to the snout such as some dots where our cartoon bear’s whiskers will be. In folklore and popular culture, bears are often seen as very wise, mystical creatures. So, let’s give our cartoon bear a friendly smile! 

Next, draw an oval shape on the body for our furry friend’s chest and add another oval shape for the tail. We can also finish off the legs we started earlier – make the feet nice and big for strolling through the forest.

STEP-5: Bear with Us – We’re Getting There!
Our cartoon bear is looking pretty awesome, but we just need to add some finishing touches before we put some color in our paws! 

Let’s add some expression to our furry friend’s face by drawing in some eyebrows and finishing the eyes – try and make our cartoon bear look friendly and wise. By drawing two lines across the eyes, we can make it look as if our bear buddy has got large eyelids and is a little sleepy – maybe he’s just woken up from a long winter’s hibernation? 

Add two small dots in the center of each eye for the pupils and we’re almost done! Draw a small curved shape halfway down the arm for our cartoon bear’s elbow and then finish off those large feet by drawing in the toes.

Paws at the ready – it’s time to color in our awesome cartoon bear! Bears come in a variety of colors, such as black, brown or white, but we’ll make ours jump out from the page by using an orange-brown for the body. Use a darker shade for the outline, rub out any lines you don’t need and then get ready to go down to the woods in the final stages of today’s drawing lesson! Color in the body using an orange-brown. 

Then, do the chest area in a vibrant shade of yellow – maybe that’s why so many bears live in Yellowstone National Park? Next, use a darker shade of brown for the eyebrows and nose, remembering to leave a small section of white on the nose to represent highlights. There, our wise friend of the forest is now ready to have fun! 

Now you know how to draw a cartoon brown bear and you’ve impressed your family and friends with your superb skills, why not try drawing some trees and mountains behind him? Alternatively, you could draw several different colored bears and really get creative. Don’t paws for thought – try it today!