Drawing Fur, Grass, and Wood Textures

A kitten can look fluffy, grass can look spiky, and a wooden fence can show its grain. All you need to create these effects are regular colored pencils and a few different kinds of strokes. Learn how to draw textures with colored pencils and use them on coloring sheets. Start with a small part of the picture: an animal’s ear, a patch of meadow, or a single board.

What is texture in a drawing?

Texture is the look and feel of a surface. In a drawing, we can suggest it with dots, lines, and patches of color. The paper stays flat, but carefully placed pencil marks make drawn fur look soft and wood look uneven.

Gather some colored pencils, practice paper, and a printable coloring page. Browns and greens will come in handy, but there’s nothing wrong with a blue cat or a purple meadow! This is a fun activity for kids to explore at their own pace. Try each technique on a separate scrap of paper first.

Fur: short strokes with spaces between them

Choose an animal with large areas to fill in. You’ll find suitable designs among our animal coloring sheets.

1. If you like, start with a very light layer of a pale color over your chosen area.
2. Draw a few short strokes, lifting your pencil off the paper after each one.
3. Add more strokes alongside them, leaving small spaces between them.
4. Use a darker shade for some strokes to help them stand out.

Let your strokes follow the shape of the area you’re working on. On a cat’s ears, they might point toward the tips. On its cheeks, they can fan out slightly to the sides. They don’t have to be the same length or perfectly parallel. To start, try adding fur to just the tail or one cheek.

Grass: a few strokes make a clump

You can draw grass beneath an animal’s paws, beside a house, or around a flower. There’s no need to fill the whole background with green.

1. Place your pencil where you want the clump to grow.
2. Draw a short upward stroke.
3. Starting near the same point, add two more strokes: one leaning left and the other leaning right.
4. Repeat this pattern in several places, changing the height and angle of the strokes.

Varying the height of the blades makes the grass look more natural. Alternate between light and dark green, or use just one pencil. Leave some white paper between the clumps. Our plant coloring sheets work well for this activity, too.

Wood: long lines and an oval knot

This technique is useful for coloring a fence, door, table, or wooden chest. To practice, draw a rectangle to represent a single board.

1. Fill the board with a light, gentle layer of brown.
2. Use a darker pencil to draw several long lines along the board.
3. Curve some lines slightly and leave breaks in others. Don’t use a ruler.
4. Add a small, narrow oval for a knot. Surround it with a few curved lines, and let the nearby grain lines bend around it.

On an upright board, the lines will run mostly from top to bottom. On a horizontal board, they’ll run along its length. One knot and a few irregular lines are enough to suggest the look of wood.

What if the strokes blend into a solid patch?

Try pressing more lightly and leaving wider spaces between your marks. Instead of pressing hard right away, build up the strokes gradually. If your pencil tip is very blunt, sharpening it will help you draw thinner lines.

You don’t need to add texture to the entire picture. A fluffy tail, three clumps of grass, and a small section of wooden fence might be the only details you draw this way. Your child can color the rest however they like.

If you’d like to try other materials, too, take a look at our idea for stick puppets made from coloring sheets. Your drawn fur could decorate a character for a homemade puppet show.

Download a picture and try drawing fur, grass, or wood textures.