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Use Numbers to Create Cute Animal Drawings
Drawing activities that stir up the imagination can be just the thing when the kids are stuck at home and bored. Reimagining numbers as animals will get their creative gears turning as well as improve focus and hand-eye coordination. Best of all, it only requires paper and something to draw with. In this activity, we’ve taken the numbers one through nine and turned each digit into an adorable cartoon creature. They’re fun, easy, and sure to keep the kids busy and happy.
Our Inkonic pens are a great tool for this project. They come in bright colors and make nice clean lines. The best surface to use for these drawings is a sketchbook. By having all the drawings in one book, they’ll stay protected and be accessible when the kids want to look at their work or show them to their friends. After they’re finished with these drawings, a sketchbook offers additional pages for lots more.
We’ve got easy-to-follow videos for each number drawing. We suggest you and your child read through the instructions and then watch the video.
List of Supplies
Turn Numbers Into Animals
1. Bear
1. Using a black pen, start by writing a number one. Make sure to add the serif, or little flag at the top, as this will be the bear’s eyebrow.
2. Next to it, draw another number one, only this time backward.
3. Join the bottom with a horizontal line. Add two diagonal lines to it to create a triangle. This is the bear’s nose. From the triangle’s point, draw a short vertical line. Attach an upside-down “V” to the line’s base. This is the mouth.
4. Color in the nose. Add the eyes and reinforce the eyebrows. Add some dots under the nose where his whiskers would be.
5. Draw the outline of his head. Make sure to include some wavy lines for his fur. Once you have his head and shoulders, add a few squiggly lines under his mouth for the chin. Add his furry ears.
6. Color in his nose with a brown pen and add fur to his face by placing random small, choppy strokes.
7. Place lots of strokes closer together inside the ears and in rows along one side of the face to emphasize how shaggy his hair is.
2. Mouse
1. Write down the number 2.
2. Starting at the 2’s top, draw the ear using a jagged line to indicate the hair. Go down about halfway and make a short jagged horizontal line for the top of the mouse’s head. Continue the line upward to create the second ear.
3. At the 2’s base, draw a nose.
4. Extend the nose line across and past the second ear for the mouse’s body. Don’t forget to add his tiny foot and curvy tail. Add a C-shaped line above the foot to show the leg.
5. Draw the inner ears, the eyebrows, eyes, his smile, and whisker dots.
6. Using a gray pen, place lines close together to fill in the mouse’s ears, face, and body. Make the inside of each ear pink.
3. Bunny
1. Write the number 3 in blue.
2. Draw the bunny’s nose and front paws on the left side, beginning at the top of the 3.
3. At the center of the 3’s lower half, draw a curved and jagged line to indicate the leg, ending with a tiny foot that attaches to the number’s right side.
4. Add ears and a fluffy tail.
5. Give the bunny eyes and a nose using black.
6. Color the bunny gray and its ears pink with short overlapping strokes.
4. Rooster
1. Start with the number 4.
2. The stem of the 4 will be the rooster’s leg. Add another leg by drawing a diagonal line down from the 4’s bottom edge.
3. Next, from the top of the 4, draw the beak and then a curving line for the comb, continuing the line down to form a neck and across the number’s width. Keep going and add large and small jutting lines for the tail feathers, joining this line with the top of the first leg.
4. Add dots for eyes and lines for feet.
5. Add the wing.
6. Use a red fineliner to color the rooster’s comb, feathers, and wing stripes.
7. Use rows of curved lines to color the rooster green, adding yellow to the feet.
5. Tiger
2. On the horizontal line’s end, draw the ears. Now extend that line outward.
3. Next, make a vertical jagged line for the fur down past the bottom of the 5.
4. Extend the bottom and connect it to the jagged line.
5. The tiger’s mouth is the 5’s interior, so add some teeth to the top and bottom.
6. Draw a vertical line from the mouth’s top, forming an inverted triangle as you reach the top of the 5. This is the nose. Color it in.
7. Add the eyes under the ears, using semicircles with a dot for each pupil.
8. With the black pen, color in the ear and add some stripes around his face.
9. Draw in a tongue, so he looks like he is roaring.
10. Color your tiger bright orange. Use pink to color his tongue and ears.
6. Elephant
1. Draw the number 6.
2. From the top of the 6, draw a large semicircle for the elephant’s ear. Draw another smaller ear in front of that one.
3. Add the elephant’s back as a curved line starting in the middle of the ear and going down past the bottom of the 6.
4. Starting at the most curved part of the 6, draw a horizontal line that turns into a vertical line down to be the same length as the elephant’s back. This makes the trunk and front leg.
5. At the bottom of that line, place a horizontal line to about mid-ear, then a circular line for the body that turns into another vertical line for the back leg.
6. Add a tail and lines to show the separation of the front and back legs.
7. Draw the elephant’s toes and the inside of its ear.
8. Put in eyes and a smile.
9. Using long vertical strokes placed close together, color in the elephant with a blue pen. Use pink for the ear.
7. Goose
1. Draw a 7.
2. Make a horizontal line from the bottom of the 7’s stem to create the back, curving it up and adding feathers for a tail.
3. At the beginning of the 7, draw the goose’s bill by placing a slightly diagonal line downward that angles back toward the 7.
4. Continue that line diagonally down to form the neck, curving it past the bottom of the 7 and across to join with the opposite line to form the body.
5. Place two legs with webbed feet under the body.
6. Draw a vertical line from the bill’s top to the bottom of it. Add a dot for the eye and a dash for the nostril.
7. Draw the wing and multiple rows of feathers.
8. Use gray and brown fineliners to color in the goose. Use yellow to color in the bill, legs, and feet.
8. Caterpillar
1. Make an 8.
2. Add five more circles to the bottom of the 8, going from medium to large to medium to small. Draw them at a curved angle.
3. Give your caterpillar two tall antennae. Draw short straight lines to give him two legs on all the circles except the last one.
4. Put in two dots for eyes and a smile.
5. Using green and yellow, color every other circle except his face and one of the medium-size circles. Color those orange.
6. With the green, add polka dots to create a pattern on all the circles.
9. Lion
1. Make a 9.
2. Beside it, place a backward 9. These form the lion’s eyes and nose bridge.
3. Connect the 9s at the bottom with an upside-down triangle for the nose. Color in the nose. Draw a vertical line from the triangle’s point, adding two downward diagonal lines for the mouth. Add dots for the whiskers.
4. Put pupils in the eyes and add eyebrows above.
5. Use a brown fineliner to draw the head’s outline. Give your lion a tuft of hair at the top.
6. For the mane, add a semicircle around the head’s shape, alternating between smooth and jagged along the line to illustrate its shagginess.
7. With a brown pen and separate rows of strokes, fill in the lion’s face.
8. Color in the mane using a lighter brown.
The Wrap Up
Wow! Nine numbers made into nine animals. It’s amazing what you can do when you use your imagination! We hope these little projects showed you how much fun it is to draw.
Let us know what you thought about doing these, we’d love to hear from you.
