Drawing a cartoon forest can be quite relaxing and easy to achieve if you know how to handle this topic. You don't need to create tons of trees filled with complex details, shadows and textures. Since a forest is quite dense and compact, only a few basic shapes are required to create something colorful and fun to look at.
In this simple step-by-step tutorial, I will show you how to draw a nice forest using only a few basic shapes (like a triangle) and some primary colors. If you have access to a vector software, you can also add a few special effects like transparency and gradient fill. It is quite easy to achieve and the result looks clean and professional.
In this first step, I will show you how to draw a simple tree. This tree will be duplicated during this lesson and it's the template that will be used to create the forest itself. First, draw two rectangles to create the top of the tree. Once this is done, add four more triangles to create the body of the tree.
Next, add a small rectangle on the bottom to form the trunk. Finally, to make the whole thing more enjoyable to watch, join all triangles together and keep the outline of this new shape. Our tree is now ready to be used on our cartoon forest.
Start your drawing by adding a few trees in the middle of your artwork. Don't sketch trees that are too big. Since these trees are the one on the back, they need to be smaller to give a little perspective to your drawing.
Next, add another line of trees in front of the first one. This time, make the trees bigger and higher. You can play the size of each individual trees to make the illustration more realistic in terms of proportions.
Repeat the same process for this step...
... and repeat it one last time to complete the part with the trees.
It's now time to work on the background. Add a long thin line to create a small mountain. You can also create a sun and a cloud to fill the sky a little bit.
Add color to your illustration by filling the sky in blue. Leave the cloud white and color the sun in yellow. For the trees, make sure that the ones on the back are darker than the ones in the front. The grass can be lighter than the front trees for now. Color all trunks in brown.
For this last step, apply a little bit of transparency on the bottom part of the mountain. You can also blur the sun and the cloud. For the sky and the ground, use the "gradient fill" tool to apply a little bit of shadows and create more depth to your artwork. Congratulations! You now have a nice cartoon forest!