how to draw a donut

Learn how to draw a donut that looks good enough to eat with an easy step by step tutorial.

Officially speaking, a donut is a fried dough confection and one of the most popular foods of all time. The two most common types of donuts are ring donuts, which are shaped like rings, and filled donuts, which are round and have sweet fillings inside them. Both varieties often have icing and added sweets on top like coconut or sprinkles.

Everyone has their own favorite type of donut, for their own reasons. Mine is a cake buttermilk, eaten warm right after you get home from a long day of elementary school, made by your mother on a rainy day which kept her doing inside things all day on the farm. Rainy days + warm crispy donuts. You can't beat that combo.

But …. since that buttermilk donut would never get any attention on Instagram these days, here's how to draw the classical ring donut with frosting and sprinkles. Those are the ones that make all our mouths water anyway.

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Materials for How to Draw a Donut

Pencil. The Ticonderoga brand are the most reliable, make nice dark lines when you need them, and are the easiest to erase. Buying the pre-sharpened ones will save busy teachers a lot of time.

Eraser. Large ones you can hold in your hand do a much better job than just the pencil tip erasers, especially when erasing leftover pencil lines after tracing.

Black Sharpie Marker. These fine point permanent marker pens make nice black outlines, have a good tip for coloring, and never bleed when they get wet. Use them with good ventilation and add extra paper underneath to protect your tables.

Prang Crayons. These are a bit softer than other crayons so they sometimes look like oil pastels. They also have a some nice brown shades that Crayola does not have unless you buy their larger boxes.

Crayola Crayons. The reliable brand that always works well. The 24 pack has some of my favorite golden orange and yellow colors that seem a bit richer and warmer than the ones Prang has.