Christmas Lights Drawing: 8 Easy Bulbs to Draw Step by Step (+ Free Practice Sheets)

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Here are eight easy Christmas light bulbs to draw step by step, plus three free printable Christmas lights practice sheets.

A Christmas lights drawing is the easiest festive doodle there is, as long as you start in the right place. Not with the bulbs. With the wire. Get one loose, scalloped line across the page and the lights more or less hang themselves.

What Do You Need for a Christmas Lights Drawing?

Quick Answer: A pencil, an eraser and a black fineliner are enough. Pencil the wire and bulbs lightly, ink over them, then rub the pencil out. Colour is optional, and a white gel pen for highlights is the one extra that makes the biggest difference.

For the ink I use a Sakura Pigma Micron fineliner set. The 05 is right for the wire and the outline of each bulb, and the 01 for the little sockets and glow lines. Fineliner ink doesn’t smudge when you colour over it, which matters here because the colour is the whole point.

For colour, markers give you those flat, bright, sweet-shop bulbs in one pass. An alcohol marker set like the Ohuhu markers has every red, green, gold and blue you’d want, and they blend softly if you fancy a halo. Coloured pencils work too; they just take a little longer to get rich.

And then the secret weapon: a white Gelly Roll pen. One tiny white stroke on each coloured bulb and it looks lit. Use it on a dark page and the glow lines suddenly sparkle.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase. I only recommend things I actually use.

How to Draw a String of Christmas Lights Step by Step

This is the classic string of big, pointy bulbs. The second free sheet shows each of these five stages drawn out, so you can copy along one line at a time.

1. Draw a loose, scalloped wire. Pick two or three points across the page and let the wire sag between them in shallow U shapes. Real lights hang from hooks, so the little peaks between the dips are fine. Keep it loose. A ruler-straight wire looks like a washing line.
2. Add a socket every few centimetres. A tiny rectangle sitting on the wire, slightly narrower at the bulb end, with two lines across it for the screw ridges. Space them evenly by eye. Eight on a page-wide string is a lovely number.
3. Hang a bulb from each socket. A teardrop that grows out of the socket and ends in a soft point. Here’s the trick: each bulb points away from the wire at a right angle, so where the wire curves, the bulbs tilt. That one detail is what makes them look like they’re really hanging.
4. Add a highlight and three glow lines. A short curved line just inside one edge of each bulb for the shine, then three little dashes fanning out from the tip, with a gap between bulb and dash.
5. Colour in a repeating pattern. Red, green, gold, blue, then round again. Leave the highlight line white if you’re colouring with markers, or add it back on top with a white gel pen.

If two bulbs bump into each other where the wire dips, let one tuck slightly behind the other. Real strings tangle. A little overlap reads as charming, not wrong.

8 Christmas Light Bulbs to Draw

Once the classic bulb feels easy, swap in some of these. Every one is built the same way: the socket first, then the glass, then a highlight and glow lines. All eight are drawn out in three steps on the first free sheet.

• Classic C9: the big, pointy, old-fashioned bulb. A teardrop with a soft point.
• Round mini: a little circle on a short neck. Cheerful and quick, lovely in long rows.
• Slim C7: the classic bulb’s skinnier cousin, a narrower teardrop that suits tight spaces.
• Fairy dot: a tiny circle on a tiny socket. Draw dozens along a thin wire for fairy lights.
• Star: a five-point star sitting on the socket, one point tucked into the cap.
• Heart: a heart with its point in the socket. Sweet on a card or a gift tag.
• Vintage Edison: a big round bulb with a zigzag filament drawn inside. Very cosy-cafe.
• Candy stripe: a classic bulb with diagonal stripes across the glass, like a little sweet.

Mixing styles on one string is where it gets fun. A star every fifth bulb, or a heart in the middle of a run of round minis, gives the eye somewhere to land.

How to Make Your Christmas Lights Look Like They Glow

Quick answer: leave a white highlight on every bulb, add short glow lines, and soften a little of the same colour around each bulb.

Keep a highlight. A thin curve of white paper just inside one edge of the glass. If you’re using markers, draw it in pencil first and colour around it. Lost it? A white gel pen puts it straight back.

Draw the glow lines with a gap. Three short dashes fanning out from the tip, starting a little way off the glass. If the dashes touch the bulb, they read as spikes. The gap is what makes them read as light.

Add a halo. With a coloured pencil or the lightest marker in the same colour family, shade a soft circle on the paper around each bulb, pressing lightest at the outside. It’s a subtle step and it changes everything.

Try a dark page. Christmas lights on navy or black paper, coloured with gel pens or opaque markers, look like a real night-time window. Glow lines in white on a dark background are pure magic.

5 Colour Patterns for Christmas Lights

• Classic multicolour: red, green, gold, blue, repeat. The one everyone recognises.
• Warm white: leave the bulbs white, shade a pale yellow halo, and outline in a warm brown instead of black. Cosy and grown-up.
• Red and green: just two colours, alternating. Simple, very Christmassy, great on a card.
• Vintage pastels: dusty pink, mint, butter yellow and powder blue. Lovely in a junk journal.
• One colour: every bulb the same shade of red or gold, for a minimal, modern look.

10 Ways to Use Christmas Lights in Your Drawings

A string of lights is one of the most useful doodles you’ll ever learn, because it fits around almost anything.

• Card borders. One string across the top of a folded card, and the inside writes itself.
• Journal page headers. A short string above the date in a planner or junk journal.
• Wrapped round a tree. Draw a simple tree, then a scalloped wire spiralling down it with mini bulbs.
• Round a window. Frame a little drawn window with lights and put a candle on the sill.
• Round lettering. Write a word in big bubble letters and let a string of lights loop around it.
• Gift tags. Three bulbs on a short wire and a name. Done.
• A knotted string. Add a loop or two in the wire, as if the lights came out of the box tangled.
• Along a fence or roof line. In a little winter house scene, lights along the gutter make it Christmas instantly.
• In a jar. Draw a glass jar and stuff a tangle of fairy dots inside it.
• As bunting. Swap every other bulb for a tiny star and let it run across a whole spread.

If you have a cutting machine, my Christmas lights SVG files are made for crafts like these. And when you want something next to draw, there are plenty more ideas in my Christmas things to draw list.

What’s in the Free Practice Sheets?

Quick answer: one 5-page A4 PDF with three practice sheets, a cover and a page of tips. Print it on ordinary paper.

• 8 Christmas Light Bulbs: every bulb style above, each drawn in three steps (socket, glass, highlight and glow) and labelled.
• Draw a String of Lights: all five stages from this post, one under the other, with the last one in colour.
• Your Turn: four faint dotted practice wires, ready for your own sockets and bulbs.
• How to use the sheets: six quick tips on one page, plus where to find more printables like these.

5 Tips for a Better Christmas Lights Drawing

1. Wire first, always. The wire decides the spacing and the angle of every bulb. Draw it before anything else.
2. Point every bulb away from the wire. At a right angle to the wire where it hangs. Bulbs that all point straight down look stuck on.
3. Don’t make it too neat. Slightly different sizes and angles look real. Perfect spacing looks printed.
4. Use two line weights. A thicker pen for the wire and glass, a fine one for the sockets and glow lines.
5. Stop before you over-glow. Three glow lines per bulb is plenty. Ten and the page starts to look like it’s fizzing.

Want the Full Christmas Drawing Set?

Want More Printables Like These?

If practice sheets like these are your thing, the Artsydee Creation Club is where the rest of them live: a growing library of drawing templates, coloring pages and junk journal kits, with the seasonal sets landing first.

You can also browse everything else I make in my Artsydee shop, and there’s more drawing and painting with me over on YouTube. If you’d like the next video when it lands, subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you draw Christmas lights easily?

Draw a loose, scalloped wire first. Add a small socket every few centimetres, hang a teardrop-shaped bulb from each one pointing away from the wire, then add a highlight and three short glow lines to each bulb. Colour them in a repeating pattern like red, green, gold and blue.

How do you make drawn Christmas lights look like they’re glowing?

Leave a thin white highlight inside each bulb, draw short glow lines with a small gap from the glass, and shade a soft halo of the bulb’s own colour on the paper around it. On dark paper, white gel pen glow lines look especially bright.

What colours are Christmas lights in a drawing?

The classic pattern is red, green, gold and blue repeating along the string. Warm white, red and green only, vintage pastels or a single colour all look lovely too. Pick one pattern and keep it consistent along the wire.

Is a Christmas lights drawing good for kids?

Yes. It’s one of the easiest festive things to draw, because every bulb is the same simple shape. Younger children can skip the sockets and just draw blobs on a wavy line, then colour them in.

Can I use these practice sheets in a classroom?

Please do. Print as many copies as your class needs. Just don’t sell them or pass the file on; send people to this page and they can grab their own set.

Final Thoughts

Christmas lights are the doodle that makes everything else look festive. Learn the wire and one bulb, and you can string them across cards, journal pages, trees and windows all season long. They’re forgiving, they’re quick, and colouring them in on a dark evening is a properly cosy way to spend half an hour.

Grab the three free practice sheets from the box at the top of this post and start with one string. I share more drawing ideas on Pinterest too.

You Might Also Like

• Christmas Doodles to Draw: 20 easy festive doodles to sit alongside your lights
• Easy Christmas Drawing Ideas: 30 simple things to draw next
• Gingerbread House Drawing: a cosy house to string your lights along
• 37 Free Christmas Drawing Templates: the big printable collection
• 31 Christmas Things to Draw: ideas for every skill level

Pin this for later so you can find the free practice sheets when you sit down to draw.

Happy drawing!
Dee x