This cartoon heart is obviously excited about something... Valentine's Day perhaps? :-)

Yes, Valentine's Day is fast approaching, a day best symbolized by things that relate to love... roses, chocolates, doves, cupid - but most of all, hearts!

In this lesson, I'd like to show you a really simple way to design a cartoon heart. And similar to some of the other lessons here on this site, the face is just an added bonus. Give your heart a face if you like, an arrow going through it, a different color... or do nothing to it at all! The choice is yours.

Alright, here goes...

First Step - Draw a Vertical Line
Hearts are simple enough that keeping proportion should be an easy task. A lop-sided heart just doesn't look all that great and so it's a good idea to use a center line to make sure the left side is equal to the right.

So, draw a vertical line on the page in front of you and make sure that it's nice and light so you can erase it later on.

Once you've got your line drawn, decide on whether you'll start your cartoon heart from the left side, or from the right side. The idea is to finish on half of the heart first, and then draw the second half by mirroring the image on the other side of the center line. Keeps both symmetry and proportion.

Second Step - Map it Out
As you can see, I decided to go with the left side first.

Starting near the top of the center line, draw the left side of your heart. You don't need any sort of measurement to do this. Quick and simple.

After you've got the left side drawn, take a look at the example to the right. Notice how I've used dots to map out the approximate location of the right side of the heart? Well, go ahead and do the same.

Choose about three distinct points along the line that makes up the left side of your cartoon heart, and mark them with dots. Once you've done so, reproduce them about the same distance from the center line, but on the opposite (right) side.

Remember, no need to use a ruler... just get a rough idea. And make sure you keep the dots very light so you can erase them too!

Final Step - Connect the Dots
Once you've got your dots all mapped out on the right side of the center line... connect them!

Just make sure that when you do so, you try your best to create the same sorts of curves that you did on the left side.

When you're all finished, erase the center line and the dots to reveal a near-perfect heart!

Got your heart all drawn? Excellent... now draw some more! Surely this little tutorial will come in handy as you work away on all those valentines you're going to be handing out! ;-)

Well, that's how you draw cartoon hearts... hope you enjoyed the lesson!

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