2024 Chinese New Year Tutorial
To celebrate the Lunar or Chinese New Year, I painted an Earth Dragon with an earthy green color, with peach peonies in a diamond shape. This is a less detailed painting than what I usually do. It’s the year of the Earth dragon, the color of the year is peach, and the flower for 2024 is peony. So I combined everything in one painting.
Honestly, I’m not good at drawing dragons. It’s my first time to draw and paint a dragon. Also, this painting prepared me for a bigger size painting for a commission.
In this watercolor painting, I painted the dragon and the peonies in complementary colors in the shades of red and green in a lighter value.
I don’t have a reference photo for the dragon and the peonies, but I have a free downloadable outline available if you would like to paint this earth dragon. You can get the free outline here.
I also use Daniel Smith Iridescent Antique Gold for the background, and some areas in the watercolor painting to somehow elevate my artwork.
Bianca Santiago 