How To Paint A Sleeping Dragon (Watercolor)

How to paint a sleeping dragon using watercolor

So this is my first real post... and I'm going to show you how to paint a green dragon, sleeping in a tree, using watercolor paints. You will need a few different things for this painting:

A bowl or cup of water

Watercolor paints (it doesn't matter what kind they are. You can use tube or cakes. I used cakes.)

At least three round brushes (big, medium and small)

A very light pencil (I used an 4H)

And A piece of watercolor paper. (if you don't have any, white construction paper can work... But it's not great)

So the first thing you'll need to do is sketch out your background. Lots of branches and some bunches of leaves:

  

For the next step, draw in your dragon. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just a quick sketch so you can get the basic idea of it. I know this picture isn't great, but if you look closely you can sorta see the dragon I sketched in there. He is sleeping on the branch.

 Now mix up some light green paint. Sort of a lime color. If you have tube watercolor, use green and yellow. If you have cakes, you might already have this color. If not then mix green and yellow. Using a medium round brush, quickly brush it all over the dragon and leaves.

Next take some darker green and shade the dragon slightly. To shade with Watercolor, just spread on a bit of green then use water to blend it in.

Now switch to a smaller brush and use a deep, emerald green. Shade the dragon even further and shade some of the leaves too. Remember to use lots of water to bled it in nicely... but not too much water! You don't want it to bleed.

Now that you are nearly done with the dragon, work on the branches and leaves. The branches are painted with a soft brown color and quick, long strokes.

Now you are almost done! Just mix that same lime-green color you used in the beginning, and mix it with some warm yellow. Then paint the dragon's wings and frill. Then you're done!

 Thank you for reading this post! And please let me know in the comments if you tried it out and how it went! -Jansney