Drawing a Cartoon Christmas Tree

1. First create a new document then make a nice background that will suit the christmas tree. I've used a blue gradient for the background, a green gradient for the grass, and I added some basic clouds in the background.

The gradient colors I used in the background were: #059de2 and #0170aa.

The gradient colors I used in the grass were: #3e9726 and #337f20.

For the clouds I just made a few random circles, filled with white and lowered the opacity. For the blurry clouds I applied Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

2. Now let's start drawing our tree.

First start by making a new layer, then changing your foreground color to a dark brown, I used #46261b.

Now get the Pen Tool.

For the tool options, use the following settings:

Now on the new layer, draw trunk of the tree, just an off rectangular shape like so:

Create another new layer then reset your foreground color to white (#ffffff)

With the pen tool draw another rectangle, this time a lot smaller, in the bottom left of the trunk.

Lower the opacity for this layer to about 20% and change the layer mode to Soft Light.

3. Now let's start on the main part of the tree, the leaves or whatever it is :p

Make a new layer then set the foreground color to a nice green, I used #368621.

Now draw the shape of the top of the tree, it's just a really crooked triangular shape.

After you've drawn it, apply this Gradient Overlay.

Lastly for the green part, make another new layer then reset your foreground color to white. Draw a triangle selection in the bottom right of the main green part.

Copy the layer style from the last white piece and paste it on this one.

4. Now let's draw the cool light bulbs!

First get the Ellipse Tool.

Use the following settings for the ellipse tool:

Now change your color to a nice dark red, I used #b91111. Now on a new layer draw a perfectly rounded circle (Hold SHIFT to make the circle round) on the tree somewhere.

You should be able to just keep dragging circles without having to create a new layers. Create another 3 light bulbs or so.

Change the foreground color to something completely different then make about 4 more bulbs.

The color I used there was #deb422.

Now again with pink (#de22b8)

Added a few light blue bulbs:

Lastly for the bulbs I applied this Gradient Overlay to all of the layers, you can just copy it from one layer then paste it to all of them at the same time so it's easier.

5. Lastly you can add a yellow star to the top of the tree. And I also put all of the layers into a group then duplicated it and sized it down, moved it to the side.

If you need the PSD for any learning purposes, you can download it from here.

Thanks for reading!