How to Draw an Ice Cream Cone
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Draw a long thin triangle, point down.
The triangle should be roughly twice as tall as it is wide.
Drawing on paper instead?
We straighten and clean up the photo for you. Paper counts exactly the same.
About this drawing
A cone is a triangle. The ice cream is two overlapping circles. That is genuinely the whole drawing, and it is finished in under ten minutes even if you have not drawn since school.
What makes it worth doing is that it is the first thing on this site with weight. The scoops sit ON the cone, they overlap each other, and one of them squashes slightly under the one above - and getting that right is a real drawing skill hidden inside a very easy subject.
Step by step
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Step 1
Draw a long thin triangle, point down.
Not too narrow - the opening at the top should be about as wide as one scoop of ice cream, and about half as wide as the triangle is tall. A cone that is too thin reads as a party hat immediately.
Watch out Making the triangle too narrow and too long.
Check The triangle should be roughly twice as tall as it is wide.
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Step 2
Close the top with a shallow curve, not a straight line.
The opening of a cone is a circle seen at an angle, so it curves. Which way it curves tells the viewer whether they are looking slightly down into the cone or up at it - pick one and commit.
Watch out A straight line across the top, which flattens the whole cone.
Check The top should be a visible curve.
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Step 3
Draw the bottom scoop as a circle overlapping the cone opening.
It has to sit ON the cone, which means its lower edge disappears behind the cone's rim. If the circle merely touches the top of the cone, the ice cream will look balanced there rather than resting in it.
Watch out A circle that sits on top of the rim without crossing it.
Check The circle should cross the cone's top curve.
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Step 4
Add the top scoop, overlapping the first.
Slightly smaller, and offset to one side rather than balanced dead centre - two scoops stacked perfectly reads as a snowman. Let it cross in front of the lower scoop's outline.
Watch out Perfectly centred scoops of identical size.
Check The top scoop should be off-centre and slightly smaller.
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Step 5
Erase the lines hidden behind the front shapes.
This is the step that turns three separate shapes into one object. Anything behind something else goes: the cone rim behind the scoop, the bottom scoop where the top one covers it. Overlap only works once you commit to it.
Watch out Leaving the construction lines visible, which makes everything look transparent.
Check No line should cross in front of a shape that is nearer to you.
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Step 6
Make the scoop edges bumpy rather than perfectly round.
Go round each circle and add three or four shallow bumps. Ice cream is soft and slumps; a perfectly circular scoop reads as a tennis ball, and the fix costs about ten seconds.
Watch out Making the bumps regular, which looks like a flower.
Check The outline should be uneven but still clearly round.
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Step 7
Draw the waffle grid: slanted lines one way, then the other.
Both sets of lines curve with the cone, and they get closer together as the cone narrows toward the point. Lines drawn on a curved surface must curve - that single idea is worth more than the cone is.
Watch out A flat straight grid, which makes the cone look like a piece of graph paper.
Check The grid lines should be closer together near the point.
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Step 8
Pick a light direction and shade one side of each scoop.
A scoop is a ball, so it is light on the side facing the light and dark on the other, with the darkest part just inside the edge rather than at it. Shade both scoops from the same side or they will look like separate drawings.
Watch out Shading each scoop from a different direction.
Check The shadow should be on the same side of both scoops.
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Step 9
Put a shadow where the top scoop meets the bottom one.
Wherever one thing sits on another it casts a small shadow there, and that little dark crescent is what makes the top scoop sit ON the bottom one rather than beside it. Same at the cone's rim.
Watch out No contact shadows, so the scoops read as flat circles arranged on a page.
Check There should be a dark crescent at every place two shapes meet.
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Step 10
Shade the cone, darkest on the same side as the scoops.
A cone is a cylinder that tapers, so it shades the same way: dark on the shadow side, with a thin lighter strip right at the edge where light bounces back up. Keep the strokes following the cone's slope.
Watch out Shading straight up and down, ignoring the cone's angle.
Check Your strokes should follow the sloping side of the cone.
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Step 11
Go over the lines you want to keep, and lose the guides.
This is the step that turns a construction drawing into a finished one, and it is the one most people skip. Press harder on the outline and the features; leave the small stuff light. That difference in weight is what makes a drawing look deliberate rather than traced, and it costs thirty seconds.
Watch out Going over everything at the same weight, which flattens the drawing back out.
Check The outline should be clearly darker than the smallest details.
What it looks like finished
The same drawing with every guide erased and only the lines you meant to keep, at the weight you meant them to be. If yours still has centre lines and blocking-in shapes in it, this is the step you have not done yet - and it takes about thirty seconds.
Yours will not look like this, and it is not supposed to. This is the construction with the scaffolding taken away, not a drawing somebody made to be admired - the point is to show you which of your lines were guides.
What this one actually teaches you
This is the stacking lesson. Almost everything you will ever draw is several simple shapes sitting on or in front of each other, and learning to overlap them - rather than arranging them tidily side by side - is the first real depth cue anyone learns.
The waffle grid then does something sneaky: it teaches that lines drawn on a curved surface must curve. That single idea is the whole of drawing patterns on clothing, stripes on a mug, and text on a book, and it arrives here in a very forgiving package.
Nothing here has to be neat. A cone with a slightly crooked grid still reads as a cone, and that tolerance is the reason it is a good third drawing.
Practise these: Line confidence Proportion Corners and joins
What you need
Anything. A finger on a phone works. If you are on paper, keep the first triangle light, because you will rub out the part of it the ice cream covers.
If it's going wrong
If it looks flat, the scoops are side by side rather than overlapping. Let the top one pass in front of the bottom one and put a small shadow where they meet.
If it looks like a party hat, the cone is too narrow at the top. The cone's opening should be as wide as a scoop.
The waffle grid follows the cone's shape - the lines curve slightly and get closer together toward the point. Drawing a flat square grid is the fastest way to flatten a cone you have just built.
Print the steps
Take it away from the screen. The step sheet prints on one page.
Questions people ask
- What order should I draw it in?
- Cone first, then the bottom scoop, then the top one. Drawing the ice cream first leaves you no room for the cone.
- Why does my cone look like a party hat?
- It is too narrow at the top. The opening should be about as wide as one scoop.
- How do I draw the waffle pattern?
- Two sets of slanted lines crossing, curving with the cone and getting closer together toward the point.
- Should the scoops be perfect circles?
- No. Bumpy edges read as ice cream; perfect circles read as tennis balls.
- How many scoops?
- Two is the sweet spot for learning overlap. Three works once the first two look right.
- Do I need to shade it?
- The last three steps shade it, and they are what stop it looking like a sticker. They take about two minutes.
- My ice cream looks like it is floating.
- The bottom scoop must overlap the cone opening and cast a small shadow into it.
- What should I draw after this?
- The apple, for shading, or the fish if you want another very quick win.