American football is the most popular sport in North America, rivaled only by baseball and basketball!
Football reigns supreme though, as millions of people tune in to watch their favorite teams battling it out, with the sport culminating in the ultimate football event, the Super Bowl!
If you are a fan of football, there are many ways that you can show your love for the sport. Even if you’re a mega-fan, it can be harder than you might imagine drawing a football correctly!
This step-by-step guide on how to draw a football in just 7 steps will help you celebrate your love for this sport with your creativity!
How to Draw A Football – Let’s get Started!
Step 1
Footballs have a very distinctive shape to them, and in this first step of our guide on how to draw a football, we will prepare a shape that will help you when you draw the outline.
For this step, you will need a light pencil to draw a shape that will help you in a future step. Using your pencil, carefully draw a horizontal oval shape.
This can be quite tricky, so take it slow and you’ll be able to do it! If you’re struggling, you could print out an oval shape and then use it to trace an oval for your drawing.
Step 2 – Draw the outline of the football
We used a pencil in the previous step, but for this part of your football drawing I would recommend that you start using a pen or a darker pencil.
Using your oval from the previous step, carefully draw the top of your football.
Once you get to the side, try to make it ever so slightly more pointy, as a football is not a perfect oval.
Ideally, the outline should follow the line of the oval until the very end where it will come off the oval line a bit.
Step 3 – Next, draw the bottom half of the football
For step 3 of this guide on how to draw a football, you can repeat the same process as the previous step, only this time it will be mirrored.
Once you repeat the previous step for the bottom of your football drawing, you’re ready to move on to the next step!
Step 4 – Now, start drawing the stitching of your football
You have the outline of your football complete, so for this next part we shall start on the interior of the football.
To start, simply draw a curved line coming inwards from each far end of the football. Be sure to leave a space between them, as we will draw the stitching in the next step.
Step 5 – Finish off the stitching for your football
In this next step of our guide on how to draw a football, we will finish off the stitching. To do this, simply draw a row of tiny, flat ovals between the two lines from the previous step.
Once you’ve done that row of stitches, carefully draw a line between them that would line up with the lines that lead to the stitching.
It may sound complicated, but it will be made much easier when you have the reference image to guide you!
Step 6 – Draw the final details of your football drawing
Your football drawing is almost done and looking good! Before the final step, we shall draw some final details to bring it to life.
In our picture, we drew a curved stripe near each pint of the football, which really helps add a nice final touch.
You can also add any fun details that you think would look good for your drawing in addition to our final details!
Perhaps you could draw the logo of your favorite football team onto your football to show your support!
You could also draw a nice background to finish off your drawing, and there are many other options you could go for as well.
How will you finish up the final details before coloring in?
Bonus: Use A Real Football To Make Your Drawing More Realistic
We’re just about to take on the final step of this guide on how to draw a football, but we thought it would be fun to give you a few more tips to make your drawing even more realistic.
We spoke a bit about adding extra details on and around the football, but in this section we have a few ideas for the football itself. Specifically, we want to cover some ways you can change the style.
We went for a cartoony style in this guide, but you could portray it in many other kinds of styles. Here’s a fun idea, you could use a real football to create the texture of the football drawing.
There are two ways that we can think of that you could do this. First, you will need an old football to get started.
It should preferably be one that isn’t used, perhaps one that is broken or too weathered. Try spreading some paint on a piece of the football’s surface, and then gently apply it to the image.
It could take some practice, as you won’t have much precision. This way, you will get a realistic texture on the surface of the ball.
If you’ve made absolutely sure that whoever the football belongs to wouldn’t mind you destroying it, you could also cut out strips of the surface of the football and carefully stick it over the drawing!
That way, you would have some actual 3D texture on the ball. These are a few ideas, but you may be able to think of other ways that you could use real objects to enhance your drawing.
We would be interested to see what ideas you have!
Step 7 – Finish off your football drawing with some color
Now that you have finished up the final details, it’s time to have some fun coloring in your football drawing to really finish bringing it to life.
We used a classic brown color scheme for our example, and while that’s a great look that you can use, you should feel free to use any colors that you love!
Footballs come in all manner of different styles and colors, so there’s no limit to the ways that you could finish off this drawing.
If you drew any extra details or background, you can add even more awesome detail by coloring in those parts as well.
This might be a good opportunity to use some art tools or mediums that you don’t use as often!
From acrylic paints to watercolors, colored pens, pencils and crayons, there are so many options for you to experiment and have fun with. How will you finish off your drawing?
3 More tips to make your football drawing easy!
Kick off these three tips we have for making this football sketch even easier to draw!
The first suggestion we would give in order to make this drawing of a football even easier would be to use the real thing to help you.
If you happen to have a real football available, then that would be perfect.
Using the object, try to pay attention to not only the general shape but also the smaller details of the football. If you don’t have one available to you, then you could also use images online to help you.
Even though this guide walked you through the process, having the real thing to help will make this drawing easier and even more accurate.
Next, you may want to change the design of this football drawing a little in order to make it a bit easier.
This is something you should try to do sparingly, as if you change too much then you might lose out on some crucial details.
We would recommend trying your best to draw the football as it appears in our guide. If you find yourself struggling with certain details, then you should feel free to simplify them or remove them entirely.
It would be better to do that instead of just hammering away at it while getting frustrated! By drawing the football at a different angle, you could also hide some of these tricky details.
Our third and final tip is the opposite of the previous one! Instead of removing details, you could add some to your football sketch. You may be wondering how adding things would make the drawing easier.
Let’s say you struggle to draw the stitches, but you are really good at drawing cartoon characters. You could hide the stitches by adding a character to the image and having his foot cover the detail you are struggling with.
That is just one example of how you could add something, but it would all depend on what you find easiest to draw. Plus, it would make the image even more unique!
Your Football Drawing is Complete!
You’ve just performed an artistic touchdown, as you have successfully completed this guide on how to draw a football! We really hope that you had as much fun following this guide as we did making it.
Our aim is always to show that drawing is a lot more fun when you break it down into smaller steps, so we hope that you had a great time while learning to draw.
Now that you have completed your football drawing, it’s up to you to bring it to life with some extra details.
Perhaps the ball can be sitting on a pitch with a boot about to kick it! Or you could draw some clouds with a blue sky behind them to show that it has been kicked high in the air.
This is a great opportunity to use your imagination, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with!
This step-by-step guide is one of many that we have in store for you, so the fun isn’t over yet! We bring out new guides very often, so checking our site frequently is the best way to never miss out.
We hope that you will share your completed football drawing on our Facebook and Pinterest pages once it’s done! We can’t wait to get into the football spirit alongside you and your amazing drawing.
