Most are likely to jump at the sight of a mouse in their house, but a mouse in a piece of artwork is more likely to make your heart melt! In this post, I’ll show you how to draw a mouse that’s more sweet than scary.
Let’s face it: Mice are cute as long as they’re not in our kitchens. Some of the most adorable children’s book characters are mice. Just the breadth of mouse-related merchandise out there is proof that mice are universally loved.
With such distinctive features, they’re not too tough to draw. Mice also make for a great introduction to drawing many other animals. So grab some pencils, an eraser and paper, and follow these pointers to help you create a sweet mouse drawing.
How to draw a mouse form
Mice have no shortage of adorable poses. When you learn some of the basics of the mouse shape, no matter which pose you start to work with, you will find that other poses become more easy to draw.
Is there really any mouse pose that is not cute?
Using one of my favorite mouse poses, here is my mouse drawn piece by piece so you can follow along and draw your own mouse.
As you work, take note of the sizes of the different mouse body parts in proportion to the rest of his body. This will help you remember how to draw a mouse for the next time.
Drawing mouse details
How much personality do you want your mouse to have? As you well know, mouse drawings can be very realistic or more character-like.
The mice on the left side of the image below lean toward a realistic look, in the Beatrix Potter style, with a touch of character in the eyes. The mice to the right are much more character-like with plenty of expression in their faces, though drawn in a more simplistic style.
Both styles can be equally strong pieces of art. It is your own expression in your art that matters.
How to draw mouse eyes, noses and ears
With a mouse’s highly recognizable features, you have a lot of room to play up smaller features, such as eyes and noses. As you can see in the image below, the three mice on the top row below have eyes ranging from more realistic to a cute character with lots of personality.
The same is true for the mouse’s nose: You can strive for a realistic depiction or just draw a little uneven ball of a nose.
A mouse’s ears, though, will work best if they strike the correct proportion (or even a little larger than they should be) because that’s a mouse’s defining trait.
Drawing mouse tails
I love mice tails. They can be so playful and expressive, and they’re fun to draw — or at least the first line of the tail is. The second, parallel line has to do two things: follow the first line closely and narrow in width to the nearly pointed tip.
Drawing a mouse’s front and hind paws
Mice have four toes on each front paw and five toes on each back paw. Though you may never need to be this accurate in your mouse drawing, knowing the basic anatomy — including a count of toes — will help you shape the mouse’s features correctly.
Don’t forget the whiskers!
I love when it’s time to add the whiskers to any creature. I save this task for last because I do them so lightly that they would be easily rubbed off just by my hand passing over the paper.
You can draw in a few practice whiskers where you want them and erase until they’re perfect. For the real thing, use a really sharp pencil.
Keep the whisker lengths a little uneven. Gently brush at the tips with kneaded eraser to thin them even more. You can even use the kneaded rubber to stipple a couple of them. Study Beatrix Potter’s style of drawing whiskers — she was and is the best!
There really is nothing sweeter than a little batch of mice!
Helo, a bit of an absurd question but I was wondering if i could use the illustrations in my neuroscience booklet with credit? If not that's fine and thank you for reading.