How to Draw a Turkey Drumstick for Thanksgiving

How to Draw a Turkey Drumstick for Thanksgiving: A Free Page, a Video and 20 Free Worksheets

Thanksgiving is all about the food, so this year I drew a character straight off the dinner table: a happy cartoon turkey drumstick with big googly eyes, a goofy grin and a bone sticking out the top. In this post you’ll find the free step-by-step drawing page, a video that shows the whole drawing coming together, and my 20 free Thanksgiving worksheets for the rest of the holiday week.

Like every page in my books, the drumstick is broken into six easy steps. A light gray outline of the finished drumstick appears on every step to help kids plan the size and spacing of their drawing, and the black lines show what to draw, adding a little more each step. It’s a great fit for kids ages 5 and up, and it only takes about 15 minutes, which makes it perfect for the kids’ table while the turkey is still in the oven.

Download the Free Turkey Drumstick Drawing Page (PDF)

Want just the drawing lesson, with printing and classroom mode built in? It lives on its own page: How to Draw a Drumstick in 6 Easy Steps.

How to Draw a Turkey Drumstick, Step by Step

Here’s what happens in each of the six steps. Draw lightly at first, and don’t worry about perfect lines. A wobbly drumstick still looks delicious.

1. Step 1: Draw the meat: a big rounded shape that narrows toward the top, with a little zig-zag edge where the bone pokes out.
2. Step 2: Add the two big round eyes and the two straight lines of the bone.
3. Step 3: Finish the bone with the two curved bumps on the end.
4. Step 4: Draw the big curved smile.
5. Step 5: Add the shine lines that make the drumstick look round and juicy.
6. Step 6: Finish with the little dots on the skin and the highlights on the bone.

Then try it again without looking at the steps. Kids are always surprised by how much they remember the second time around.

Sign up for my free newsletter to get more drawing pages or videos like this right in your inbox! Click here.

Tips for Coloring Your Drumstick

Once the drawing is done, it’s time for color. Here are a few easy ideas:

• Golden brown meat: start with a light orange or tan, then go over the edges with a darker brown so the middle looks shiny.
• A creamy bone: leave it white, or color it very lightly with yellow or beige.
• Leave the shine white: skip the little shine lines when coloring, and the drumstick will look like it just came out of the oven.
• Make it silly: who says a drumstick has to be brown? A purple drumstick with green polka dots is still a drumstick.

Turn Your Drumstick into a Thanksgiving Table Decoration

A finished drawing doesn’t have to stay on the fridge. Here are a few ways to put a drumstick to work on Thanksgiving Day:

• Place cards: draw a small drumstick on a folded card and write a guest’s name under it.
• A drumstick family: draw a whole plate of them, each with a different face: happy, sleepy, surprised or very nervous about dinner.
• A thank-you note: add a speech bubble that says what your drumstick is thankful for, and give it to someone at the table.

20 Free Thanksgiving Worksheets

If your kids want more after the drumstick, I made a whole set of free Thanksgiving worksheets for grades K–5. All 20 sheets use my Thanksgiving characters, including this same drumstick, a turkey, a pumpkin, an acorn and a slice of pie. There are four kinds:

• Drawing: Turkey in Disguise, Draw Your Thanksgiving Plate, Draw the Turkey by Grid, Fill the Harvest Horn, Design a Parade Float and Thanksgiving Shape Starters.
• Puzzles and games: a word search, a pumpkin patch maze, Unscramble the Feast, Pie and Turkey Sudoku and Thanksgiving Dinner Bingo.
• Math: Pie Fractions, Count the Harvest and a Thanksgiving food graph.
• Writing and gratitude: a THANKFUL acrostic poem, a thank-you postcard, a family interview, My Thanksgiving Day, The Great Turkey Escape comic and place cards.

Each sheet is its own PDF, and there’s an all-in-one PDF with an answer key, plus a five-page Kids’ Table Pack that’s just right for keeping little ones busy before dinner.

Get the 20 Free Thanksgiving Worksheets

Using This Drumstick Page in the Classroom

Teachers are welcome to print copies of this page for the whole class, for classroom or home use. It makes an easy Thanksgiving art center, an indoor recess activity or an early-finisher page.

• Draw it, then write about it: students name their drumstick and write about how it escaped the Thanksgiving table. My free draw-and-write sheets have a box for the drawing and lines for the story: primary lines (K–2) or regular lines (grades 2–5).
• Pair it with a worksheet: follow the drawing with The Great Turkey Escape comic or Draw Your Thanksgiving Plate from the Thanksgiving worksheets.
• More ready-made lessons: my free teacher resources include printable book pages, sub plans and art center cards.

See the free use page for the full details on printing and sharing.

Love Drawing Food with Faces?

If your kids had fun drawing a turkey drumstick, my book How to Draw: Food Monsters has a whole menu of silly food characters to draw, each one broken down into six simple steps. Like all of my books, every character in it was hand-drawn by me, Kevin Coulston. None of the art in my books is AI-generated or copied from anywhere else.

Check out Food Monsters

Free Activity Page (save and print)

Print it on US Letter paper (choose “Fit to page” if your printer needs a little room at the edges), grab a pencil and follow the six steps to learn how to draw a turkey drumstick for Thanksgiving.

Download this free worksheet to learn how to draw a turkey drumstick

Download the Free Turkey Drumstick Page (PDF)

Happy Drawing, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Print the page, play the video and draw along. When your drumstick is finished, color it in, give it a name and set it on the table. Then grab a few Thanksgiving worksheets for the rest of the week. Happy drawing, and happy Thanksgiving!

Sign up for my free newsletter to get more drawing pages or videos like this right in your inbox! Click here.