Trio of Snowmen

I saw the idea for these three snowmen in an old Better Homes and Gardens craft book. They were felted wool Christmas ornaments. I thought their simple designs could be a fun winter drawing project. I used an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper cut or folded vertically. A folded paper makes a nice card. (Cardstock works well.) I used a cup or lid to fit the space and outlined it in three circles in a vertical row, drawing lightly for ease in erasing.

Still using the pencil, have the kids draw the carrot noses and add eyes to each circle. On the top snowman near the "neck" area, add two short vertical lines and two curved horizontal lines to connect the vertical lines for the scarf. Add scarf designs (stripes or circles, etc.)

In the middle circle, draw a round earmuff where an ear would be, and make a curved line from the top of the muff to the middle top of the head. Curve it a little to make it look rounded.

On the bottom circle make a band for the cap brim, like the scarf, only narrower and across the top of the circle. Add a half circle above the hat brim for the top of the cap. Add a small half circle at the middle top for a pom-pom, if desired.

Erase between all overlapping pencil lines where hat, muff, scarf and noses cross over the original head circles. Most kids need help with this, but it is an important art concept to teach them. It makes things look like they are in-front-of or behind other things. After erasing overlapping lines, outline all lines with black marker. Color in details with desired colors and designs in your choice of media. I used watercolor, some of the other pictures shown used markers and colored pencils. If you are using a wet media, you might want to use a black permanent marker to outline. Kids' markers will run if wetted.

Emphasize that snowman faces need to stay white. One of my artist testers made his all gray or black, which did not highlight the snowman idea!

If desired, make a narrow frame around the outside edge of the three snowman heads (See top picture.) Coloring in the background will emphasize the snowy look. Bottom three pictures by W-7, M-10, Mira-4