How to Draw a Ponytail With Movement

How to Draw a Ponytail low with movement & waves

The key to a good ponytail is movement.

It can be tricky to create movement in a drawing, with paper and pencil.

Remember almost everything we want to draw can be seen as simple shapes. Let’s start there.

Supplies for drawing ponytails on girls

Supplies:

Artist tip: As with any drawing it’s important to recognize how much space you are working with.

To do this, point to the middle of your paper with your finger or pencil.

This will tell your eyes how much space you have to draw in.

It does not have to be exact!

Let’s get started:

1. To start, draw the size of the head, make sure to have the ear shape and a neck for a profile, or side view.

The starting point for the hair on the head will be the top of the forehead. Make a mark on the face about a finger width from the top.

Faces can be tricky.

Artist Tip: You can learn by seeing, so look at people around you or even look in a mirror for reference.

2. From that mark, draw a wavy line to just before the ear, then draw the line wide and then have it meet back at the starting point.

3. Next, decide where the ponytail will start on the back of the head. I chose to draw a low ponytail at the nape of the neck.

Draw the same kind of wave hair shape, but now ending at the back spot.

Continue to draw this wave shape until you fill the whole hair area on the head.

4. Draw a ponytail holder at the end of the area. This can be a ribbon, a hair elastic, or scrunchie, etc.

It will look like a curved rectangle shape.

5. Continue the wave shapes out of the ponytail holder and leave the loose at the end.

These loose ends will help create the idea of movement for your ponytail.

For Color: The outlines of the shapes we drew will be darker and inside these shapes will show the highlights.

Artists Tip: Hair has lots of colors, even if the main color you see is brown.

Use a few shades of the color you choose to create depth and help it look more like natural hair.

There you go… You’ve done it! A Ponytail.

Let’s see what else we can draw together… next time maybe an umbrella?