How to Paint a Life-sized Chinese Dragon Part II

Chinese New Year was nearly a week ago and I had totally forgotten that I had promised to show you how to make a Chinese New Year dragon.

After painting the scales you will cut them like so:

Add fringe to the back using tape or glue. Next attach each section one at a time (we attached it the wall using staples) and flipping the paper so that the scallop alternates, one section with the scallop on the bottom; the next one is on top. 

You will keeping adding until it is as long as you would like, allowing the body to curve as high or low as your room allows, tapering the scale as it reaches the end of your desired lenght.

As you can see the fringe is always on the "bottom" side of the dragon. 

Next add the dragon's head and feet.

Students Singing in Chinese

We had enough sections to make two dragons that swirled around our school's multipurpose room.

Chinese Ribbon Dance

A dragon of this size was not possible without the help of many volunteers that came out to attach each piece one by one. I am so lucky to have such a supportive group of parents.

How to Paint a Life-sized Chinese Dragon Part I

It's been busy the last couple of days...a nice distraction tho. Here's what I have been up to...

My daughter's charter school mascot is the Mustang, and this year happens to be the year of the horse according the the Chinese zodiac. Since the year of the horse comes around only once every twelve years we will have a celebration marking this special event, which falls on January 31. Our Mandarin teacher, Mrs. Tong will help us put together the celebration.

For the decorations we will create a Chinese Dragon. An important symbol in Chinese culture; and viewed as symbol of power, wisdom and luck. The Chinese dragon has a body of a snake, antlers of a deer, talons of an eagle and scales of a fish. They have no wings, but are able to fly!

To paint a dragon you will need.

Paper (tag paper), the larger the paper the larger your dragon will be.
Paint (Water Color or Tempera) in assorted colors
Tissue paper or construction paper
Scissors


First a row of scalloped line. Your next row starts at the lowest point of the first scallop. Repeat until you have completed the entire page. Don't worry about having the scallops perfect. Hint: The larger your dragon, the large your scales should be. I painted mine with the paper in portrait (vertical), because I will be cutting it half. If you want an extra large dragon you will draw your scallops with the paper in landscape (horizontal).

Outlined in sharpie for viewing, however you will want to do this in pencil.

Next you will paint each scallop, being careful to not have the same color touching each.

When you finish painting it will look like this. You will want to make several of these, the more pages you paint the longer your dragon be. This makes a great group project.

Finally, trim the paper like this:

Flip the paper so you can cut a few sections with the scales in this direction:

If you are making the dragon as a group, don't worry if the scales are not alike or have different colors. I promise, it will still turn out beautiful!

Several students and their parents are helping to paint the dragon in sections. I am off to paint some more!

Stay tuned...