Did you know that the correct name for the limbs of octopus arms, not tentacles? But tentacles are commonly used word for arms.
How To Draw an Octopus (Step by Step)
How To Draw an Octopus! Drawing is an activity of expression and communication that most of us love to do, no matter at what age.
The Octopus
The octopus is a charming unusual sea creature. The octopus has no bones, and it can distort its body into numerous shapes. The octopus can change the shade of its skin to mix in with its environmental factors or when it senses danger. It has eight arms considered as tentacles that are furnished with various suction cups. This marine animal moves by pushing water out of its empty trunk. Octopi are discovered everywhere in the world, in subtropical, tropical, and mild shallow water.
Did you know that if you are discussing more than one octopus, three plural types of the word are linguistically right – octopuses, octopi, or octopods?
Are you interested in painting and drawing and are you looking for ways to encourage and polish this habit? Are you fascinated by mysterious sea creatures and looking for helpful tips on them and especially on how to draw an easy octopus? If this sounds good to you, continue reading our post below.
Draw an Octopus
Do you want to draw your octopus? You can learn how to draw an octopus with the assistance of this basic, bit-by-bit drawing instructional exercise.
In this illustration, we will show you the best way to draw an octopus. In our childhood, we have often tried making the tentacles but using this tutorial you will be able to draw this tricky part as well and completely learn how to draw an easy octopus. To make an entire ocean scene, you can reach out to our shark tutorial drawing as well.
What You Need
- Our pintables
- Paper
- Pencil/ Marker
- Coloring supplies
How to Draw an Octopus: Easy Steps
To create the simplest octopus drawing, I follow these steps:
1. Start with the eyes, making two ovals that touch for the outer lids, then adding black circles in the middle with cute little white shines for the pupils. Add two lines over the eyes for eyebrows. (We’ll discuss mouth placement in a subsequent section, because it’s more fraught than you might think for the category of easy animals to draw.)
2. Begin your octopus’s body line in the left corner of the neck, then move upward to create the head, pulling it back inward for the right side of the neck. (Think of the graceful curves of our mermaid tail drawing.) Next, go in and out eight times for the tentacles! You may want to trace these lines with pencil, first, so you don’t run out of room.
3. Add a color for the skin — be creative! It doesn’t need to be realistic. We’re drawing a funny octopus cartoon, after all, not an encyclopedia entry! Next, put in some circular-shaped texture lines along one side of each leg to indicate the suction cups on the tentacles.
4. Color the ocean behind the octopus, adding lines for the wind-blown current, and bubbles to show movement. Great job — you’re done! Now, let’s address some questions about what octopuses actually look like in real life.
Where is the Octopus Mouth?
Ok, so remember in my tutorial about snail drawing, it turned out that I was putting the eyes in the wrong place? Aw, well, turns out the same has happened with the way I draw and teach octopi, in that I was following cuteness, to the detriment of biological accuracy. With octopuses, it turns out that the mouth is actually on the BOTTOM of its body, where the eight tentacles meet — not on the face, where I’d been putting it! Argh.
Read more about octopuses underside mouth and its beak (?!) here, including the fact that the beak is the only firm part of the animal, meaning the rest of its body is so squishy and malleable that it can fit through any tiny crack that its mouth can get past! There are some wild videos of this octopus Houdini action happening in real life.
Anyway, this is to say that you have a choice to make when you’re sketching your octopus. Do you want to be accurate and keep the mouth off the visible “face,” or do you want to embrace that we’re making creative drawings here, and just incorrectly place a smile front and center? It’s up to you. There’s no octopus drawing police, so do what you wish.
What Color are Octopi?
You may think I’m going a little to extreme with my rainbow octopus drawing, above, but in real life, octopi actually come in a surprising array of different colors — and can even change color! Many octopuses are a dark red, purple, or pink color (or colour, if you’re British), which I creatively interpreted in my drawing above to be hot pink.
Meanwhile, octopus blood is blue colored, and it’s pumped by THREE different hearts inside the cephalopod. Oh my. What’s funny is that I made this drawing of an octopus below, sketching in three cheerful magenta heart shapes around the twisted tentacles — even before I learned octopuses have three hearts! I must have subconsciously known…
Octopuses or Octopi?
Ok, ready for an English language shocker? Though the word “octopi” is frequently used to describe more than one octopus (just as we used “fungi” to express the plural while mushroom drawing), the more correct plural of octopus is octopuses! WHAT?! It has to do with the language the word “octopus” is derived from: Latin (“octopi”), English (“octopuses”), or Greek (“octopodes”).
The fine folks at Merriam-Webster explain this fiery pluralization controversy in more depth here, but the good news is that both “octopuses” and “octopi” are accepted — so I’ve chosen to use both in this article.
VIDEO: Draw Octopuses
Want more creative ideas? Check out my big list of drawing prompts and cute drawings, or the rainbow octopus clothing I designed, below!
How to Draw an Octopus
In this tutorial, I will show you how to draw an octopus. The finished drawing will look very pretty. I have created this lesson specifically for children and aspiring artists, so it doesn’t contain any difficult elements to draw.
Octopuses are sea animals famous for their rounded bodies, bulging eyes, and eight long arms. They live in all the world’s oceans but are especially abundant in warm, tropical waters.
So, let’s start drawing the octopus!
- Pencil
- Paper
- Eraser
- Coloring supplies
Time needed: 20 minutes
How to Draw an Octopus
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Draw the upper part of the octopus’s body. To complete this step, draw a circle in the middle of a sheet of paper.
Add two tentacles. At the bottom of the octopus body, add two tentacles using curved lines.
Draw another tentacle. On the left side, add another tentacle similar in shape to the previous two.
Outline one more tentacle. Now add the same octopus tentacle on the right-hand side.
Draw the next one tentacle. Depict this octopus tentacle slightly raised upwards. Draw it on the left-hand side.
Add the last tentacle. Draw it raised up like the previous one and place it on the right-hand side.
Depict the facial features. Draw the octopus’s eyes as two circles and its mouth as a short, curved line.
Erase the auxiliary lines. Take an eraser to remove unnecessary lines from the octopus’s body.
Color the drawing. Use purple to paint the whole body of the octopus. Color its eyes black, adding highlights.
This drawing tutorial has come to an end. Do you like the result of your efforts? If you liked this drawing lesson, be sure to tell your friends about it. Subscribe to our social networks and do not forget to comment on drawing lessons. I remind you that for your convenience, I have created a PDF file in which you can see a short version of this tutorial. You can download this file and return it whenever you feel like drawing, even without the Internet.
