How to Draw a Dream Catcher

Today’s easy-to-follow tutorial teaches you how to draw a dream catcher to add to your crafts and projects. Dream catchers are traditional Native American crafts that are said to catch bad dreams and allow good dreams to pass through. Our drawing guide shows you how to create the hoop and woven web and add feathers to create your custom tribal clipart.

Before you start, gather your supplies. You can use painting or drawing mediums like watercolor paint, colored markers, and wax crayons. Or use a digital drawing program like Procreate or Illustrator to create digital graphics.

Are you following along with Procreate like we are? We have a massive collection of FREE Procreate brushes you can use to sketch, outline and color your dream catcher illustration.

Step 1 - Sketch the Dream Catcher Base

Begin drawing with a soft or light sketching medium to make your rough dream catcher sketch. Anything such as an erasable pencil or light shade tool you can hide with color will work for this step.

Create the Hoop

Start drawing a circle in the center of your drawing space, using a compass or a circular object like a cup or plate. Then draw a second circle that is smaller inside to create the hoop.

Add the Web

Next, create the dream catcher web inside your hoop. You can do this by drawing curved lines from the circle toward the center. Making sure to go clockwise and counterclockwise, as we did in our example image below. Alternatively, you could design something like a mandala drawing inside to make your artwork unique.

Step 2 - Apply Details to your Sketch

Your hoop and web have been roughly sketched, and now it’s time to add details. With your sketching medium, you are going to add the hanging feathers, beads, and any extra decorations.

Add Feathers

Below your hoop, draw lines for the string that hangs for your dream catcher. You can add as many as you would like. Then at the ends of your rope, draw feathers. Draw a loop at the top of the hoop that you can use for hanging.

Add Decorations

Fill your tribal sketch with small decorations such as beads and gems. You could even create a themed dream catcher by adding flower graphics, unicorn ears, and horns or butterflies.

Step 3 - Define your Sketch Lines

Create a dream catcher outline by tracing your sketch lines to darken them. You can use any dark and permanent medium to make your line art.

Begin outlining the main elements, like the hoop, feathers, and decorations.

Continue outlining the string and web lines and once you are done, remove your sketches. If you didn’t use an erasable tool, simply cover it up in the next step with opaque colors.

Step 4 - Color your Dream Catcher

In the final step of our drawing lesson, you will add color to your illustration. Any combination of shades or these boho color palettes will complement your drawing well.

We used brown, yellow, and teal for our boho clipart style drawing. Add some texture and shading effects to your artwork by checking out these four methods to blend color in Procreate.

What a fun and creative way to illustrate a dream catcher. We can only imagen how great your drawing will look sublimated on t-shirts and mugs, printed as wall art, or turned into digital stickers.

We hope you had a great time learning to draw with us. Why not check out our other free drawing tutorials for more step-by-step drawing exercises?