This episode of the 100 Days Sketching Challenge focuses on drawing planet Earth — our beautiful blue home in space. Capturing the oceans, continents, and swirling clouds is both an art project and a geography lesson. Parikshet guides you through drawing the Earth globe step by step.

🖍️ What You Need

  • Pencil and eraser
  • A round object to trace
  • Blue marker for oceans
  • Green and brown for land
  • White for clouds and ice caps

How to Draw the Earth Step by Step

  1. Draw a perfect circle — trace a round object like a cup or jar lid for a clean circle. This is the planet.
  2. Add a faint equator line — a light horizontal line across the middle helps you place the continents correctly.
  3. Sketch the continents — draw the rough shapes of the landmasses. For a clear view, place Africa centred on the equator with Europe above and Asia to the right.
  4. Add the Americas — curving around the left edge, wrapping around the sphere.
  5. Draw the polar ice caps — white areas at the very top (Arctic) and bottom (Antarctica).
  6. Add swirling clouds — wispy white cloud shapes drifting across both land and ocean, following the curve of the globe.
  7. Add the 3D shading — a soft curved shadow along one edge so the Earth looks like a round sphere, not a flat circle.
  8. Colour — deep blue oceans, green-and-brown continents, white clouds and ice caps.
💡 Parikshet's Tip: To make the Earth look like a 3D globe rather than a flat circle, add a soft curved shadow along one side and let the cloud swirls curve to follow the edge of the sphere. The oceans should dominate — Earth is about 71% water, so use plenty of blue.

🌟 Did You Know?

Earth is the only planet known to support life, and it is often called the 'Blue Planet' because about 71% of its surface is covered by water. From space, the thin blue line of our atmosphere looks surprisingly fragile. Earth is also not a perfect sphere — it bulges slightly at the equator, making it an 'oblate spheroid'. And it travels around the Sun at about 107,000 km/h!

Earth Drawing Key Points

  • 71% water — oceans dominate, so use lots of blue
  • Seven continents — place them using the equator as a guide
  • Polar ice caps — white at the top and bottom
  • 3D shading — a curved shadow makes it a sphere, not a circle

🎯 Try This: Draw Earth from a Spaceship Window

  1. Draw the Earth as seen through a round spaceship porthole.
  2. Add the metal window frame around the view.
  3. Surround the Earth with the black of space and white stars.
  4. Add the Moon in the distance and a tiny satellite floating by.