Here is a nice and easy way to draw a cartoon turtle. This was inspired by a classroom session during my recent trip to Oman. The children were studying persuasive writing. I was just saying don’t be mean to turtles wouldn’t work and that people needed to be made to think about human behaviour from a turtle’s point of view, building empathy with the creatures.

This can be done with cartoons, but there is a fine line between a cartoon that makes you think and one that just makes you laugh and move on. Some cartoons can be so generic that they don’t convey any kind of message at all because the viewer is so used to seeing the image or other that look like it. It’s possible even to give a completely different message under those circumstances!

You can also try drawing a more realistic turtle in pencil with this video.