How to Draw Sugar Skulls

How to Draw Sugar Skulls for Beginners

Learning how to draw sugar skulls is super easy, and so much fun. You can make your sugar skulls scary, cute, or anything in between.

When decorating your sugar skull drawings, there’s an endless number of ways to do this. You can embellish them in just about any way imaginable.

So let’s get started with learning how to draw sugar skulls. Have fun and enjoy the lesson.

What are Sugar Skulls

These little decorative skulls are usually made with sugar or clay. They are used in the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead.

The sugar skull is the trademark of this tradition that represents a departed soul.

What is Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos)

Day of the dead is a Mexican holiday to honor their deceased loved ones. The celebration begins on October 31 at midnight and ends November 2.

It’s believed that during this time the gates of heaven open and allow families to reunite with their lost children for 24 hours.

On November 2 the adults who have passed come to join in on the festivities and celebration.

Home alters, called ofrendas are beautifully decorated with flowers, candles, and traditional foods.

Food and beverages are placed on the alters for the spirits who are weary from their travels.

Sugar skulls are also placed on these alters.

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How to Draw a Sugar Skull

Last week we learned how to draw a skull. The process for drawing sugar skulls is very similar, but slightly less detailed.

And like with anything we draw, there are many different variations we can use. We’ll look at some of those today.

Begin by drawing out your basic shapes. These will be used as your guidelines to draw out your rough drawing of your sugar skull. Draw a circle for the head and a rectangle for the jaw.

Next rough out the eyes, nose, mouth, and cheek bones. You can change around the placement of the eyes and nose to make your skull look a little bit different.

Now you can start adding in some decorations to your sugar skull drawing. Drawing flower designs in and around the eyes look really nice on sugar skulls. But there are lots of other options as well.

Keep working on your eyes until they are both decorated. You’ll want to keep your drawings symmetrical.

The nose can be drawn as an upside down heart, or a triangle. Or any other shape you think looks good for the nose. Have fun and experiment with your drawing.

Next draw the cheek bones and the center of where your teeth will be.

Now draw the teeth for your sugar skull. You can draw them so the top and bottom teeth line up. Or you can draw them so they’re spaced out differently.

Finish up the shape of the head by drawing the chin and rounding the top of the head out. You can increase, or decrease, the size of the forehead area to change the look of your skull.

How to Draw Sugar Skull Embellishments

The best part about drawing sugar skulls is adding all the decorative embellishments. There are so many wonderful options for this step.

Flowers, hearts, leaves, and shapes are very popular choices.

The easiest place to start is with the forehead area. Start by drawing a heart, flower, or even a spider web in this area.

Finish drawing the rest of your sugar skull’s embellishments. Add as many or as few as you’d like. Whatever looks right to you is the correct amount to add. Just remember to keep everything symmetrical.

Sugar Skull Outline

Use a small black marker or pen to add an outline to your sugar skull drawing. You can make your lines thick or thin. Or any variation of the two.

You can also start filling in some areas with black where needed.

Sugar Skull Color

For most drawings I recommend using two or three markers for each section of your drawing. However, When adding color to sugar skulls you may want to just use one color for each section.

You should use whichever method you think looks better. If you need some help with using markers check out our Beginner’s Guide to Markers.

When choosing which colors to use you’ll want to pick bright colors. Sugar skulls are typically bright and colorful.

Add in a nice background to finish up your sugar skull drawing. A white Gelly Roll pen can be used to add white.

Sugar Skull Drawing Ideas

If you want to get better at drawing sugar skulls, or anything else, the best thing to do is to practice as often as possible. You can see big improvements with only a few minutes a day if you’re consistent.

Doing your drawings on artist trading cards will help make things quicker. Even if you never make any trades with other artists, they can still be a good way to see improvements.

I like doing 7 day drawing challenges for all of my drawings and this is what I recommend to all of my students. It’s a great way to work on your creativity and improving your skills and artistic style.