Elephant painting gives gouache everything it is good at: flat confident shapes, crisp edges, and colour that sits down on the page and stays put. Every elephant here is caught doing something, splashing, stretching, napping, trumpeting, so you get a real little scene instead of a grey portrait floating on white.
Below are 31 of them, starting with the simplest baby elephant and building up to full herds and misty forests. Pick whichever one makes you want to pick up a brush today, mix your puddles first, and work big shape to small detail the way gouache likes.
Using these images: free for personal projects such as printing, coloring, cards, journals and gifts. Handmade items that include them may be sold up to 30 pieces per design. More than that is commercial use and is not permitted, and neither is selling or sharing the images themselves or passing them off as your own. Please ask before any other use.
Start with the easiest story in the whole list: a baby elephant curling its trunk up over its own back to spray river water across its skin. Block the body first as one rounded sand-grey shape, head slightly down, trunk arcing up and over like a question mark. Let that shape dry flat before you add the ears, legs and the fan of water droplets.
Paint the river as a flat band of soft sage-grey behind the calf, no reflections needed yet, just a clean horizontal shape that gives the elephant somewhere to stand. Mix your droplets as tiny dots of pale cream gouache, flicked on last with the tip of a small round brush once everything underneath is bone dry.
The water spray is where beginners rush and smear the body colour. Wait for full drying time, five to ten minutes under a fan, before you touch the droplets in, and keep your brush nearly dry so the dots stay crisp rather than bleeding into the grey.
No fine round brush for the droplets: a cocktail stick dipped in thinned cream gouache makes neat little spots just as well.
Palette: Sand Grey,Terracotta,Sage,Cream
Walking trunk to tail is one of elephant painting’s most recognisable moments, and it gives you an easy proportion check before a single brushstroke of colour goes down. Sketch the mother first, a long low terracotta body on four pillar legs, then make the calf roughly two thirds her height, trunk reaching forward to hold her tail.
Measure the calf against the mother’s back leg rather than guessing: if the calf’s shoulder sits above her knee, the pair will look convincingly parent and young once painted. Block both bodies as flat warm terracotta shapes first, let them dry, then drop in the darker grey of ears and legs on top.
Golden grass behind them is a single flat band of warm sand gouache, painted in one pass with a wide flat brush so it stays matte and clean rather than streaky. If the two bodies start to merge into one shape, a thin line of cream gouache run between them separates mother from calf instantly.
Keep a reference photo of two elephants walking in line handy if the trunk-to-tail connection feels awkward at first try.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Sand,Payne’s Grey,Cream
A small bird perched on an elephant’s head turns a single animal into a tiny friendship scene, and it only costs you one extra shape. Paint the elephant’s head and ear first as a large flat terracotta mass facing slightly sideways, letting the ear curve out generously since it carries most of the personality here.
Once that shape is dry, add the bird as a small sage-grey silhouette with one confident curved line for the tail and a dot of cream for the beak. Keep the bird small, no more than a tenth the size of the elephant’s ear, so the scale reads correctly at a glance.
This is a good place to try eye level as your extra trick: paint the elephant from slightly below, so the viewer looks up into that big ear and the bird sits proudly above it against open cream sky. The eye is the one spot that can collapse a whole face, so paint it last with a single small dark dot rather than a detailed almond shape.
No fine liner brush for the bird’s legs, a sharpened cocktail stick dipped in grey gouache draws a clean thin line.
Palette: Terracotta,Sage,Payne’s Grey,Cream
Peeking calves are irresistible, and this one leans on simple overlap rather than anything tricky to draw. Paint the mother’s legs first as two or three tall flat terracotta columns, spaced slightly apart, then tuck the calf’s small round head and one eye peeking out from between them.
Build the mother’s body as one large connected shape behind the legs so she reads as a whole animal even though you only see the lower half plus a hint of her trunk curling down. The calf should overlap in front of one leg, never floating beside it, so the hiding feels believable.
If the calf’s peeking eye ends up looking startled rather than shy, soften it with a slightly lowered eyelid line in dark grey and angle the head a touch downward. Dry grass in flat warm sand behind both animals keeps the whole scene grounded without pulling focus from the hiding game.
Try this one small and square today, then come back to it as a taller vertical piece once you are happy with the proportions.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Sand,Payne’s Grey,Cream
Give the trunk somewhere to reach and the whole pose gets instant energy. Start with the elephant’s body low and compact, then stretch the trunk upward in one long confident curve toward a cluster of acacia leaves at the top of the page, front legs slightly extended as if on tiptoe.
Paint the tree canopy first as a flat sage-green mass with a few darker olive patches for depth, letting it dry completely before the elephant goes in front of it. This keeps the edges of trunk against leaf crisp rather than muddy, which matters most in a reaching pose like this one.
Light source matters here: put the sun high and slightly behind the tree, so the top of the trunk catches a pale cream highlight while the body stays in warmer terracotta shadow below. That single highlight line sells the stretch far more than extra detail would.
If your trunk ends up too short to reach convincingly, lengthen it by a third rather than redrawing the whole pose; elephant trunks forgive exaggeration more than most limbs do.
Palette: Terracotta,Sage Green,Olive,Cream
Study one photo of an acacia’s flat umbrella canopy before you block it in: that silhouette alone tells the viewer exactly where the elephant is standing.
Move from one elephant to several, and the trick that keeps a herd readable is overlap, not detail. Paint the furthest elephants smaller and paler, closer to the pale pink sky colour, then layer two or three larger terracotta elephants in front, each overlapping the next by a shoulder or a trunk.
Block the sky first in one flat wash of pale pink fading into soft sand near the horizon, letting it dry fully before any elephant shapes go on top. Keep every elephant’s legs simple vertical lines rather than detailed joints; at this distance the silhouette is doing all the work.
In ten minutes you can block four simple silhouettes walking the same direction and call it done. Given forty minutes, add a thin trail of dust in pale cream gouache swept low behind their feet, and vary two or three ear angles so the herd does not read as copies of one shape.
Keep your brush loaded with less water than usual for this one so the flat dusk colours stay matte instead of pooling.
Palette: Pale Pink,Terracotta,Warm Sand,Payne’s Grey
Mud baths let you be looser than anywhere else on this list, since real mud never has a clean edge. Paint the puddle first as a flat terracotta-brown oval right in the foreground, then lay the calf’s body half in and half out of it, one leg kicked up, trunk flopped sideways in obvious delight.
Work the calf’s wet patches wet-in-wet while the mud colour is still a little damp underneath, so the two blend slightly at the edges and the fresh mud looks properly stuck on rather than painted over. Dry splatter flicked from an old toothbrush across the calf’s back adds the finishing mess.
Beginners often paint mud too smooth and tidy; rough the puddle’s outline with small uneven bumps rather than a neat ellipse, and let a little of the terracotta bleed onto the surrounding cream ground. That untidiness is exactly what sells the joy of the scene.
No toothbrush handy, a stiff dry brush tapped hard against your finger flicks the same kind of fine splatter.
You Will Need
- old toothbrush for splatter
Palette: Mud Brown,Terracotta,Cream,Payne’s Grey
After the mess of the mud bath, slow right down for this quiet, gentle moment. Paint the elephant’s head and curled trunk first as one calm terracotta shape, trunk tip curled into a loose circle, then tuck a single small wildflower, a few sage-green petals around a cream centre, right into that curl.
Keep the flower genuinely small; it should look delicate against the bulk of the trunk, so paint it last with the tip of a fine round brush once the trunk colour is fully dry. A flat cream background with no horizon at all keeps every bit of attention on that one gentle gesture.
If the flower disappears against the terracotta trunk, outline its petals with the thinnest line of dark grey gouache rather than making it bigger; a little contrast does more than extra size.
This is a good one to try as a single framed piece: browse the gouache flower ideas for more ways to paint that little bloom with real character.
Palette: Terracotta,Sage Green,Cream,Payne’s Grey
Playful pushing calls for a diagonal, so tilt both calves slightly toward each other, heads lowered, trunks tangled in the middle where they meet. Paint one calf a shade warmer terracotta and the other a touch more grey so your eye can tell them apart even once they overlap.
Block both bodies first with dry gaps between the legs, then paint the trunks last as the connecting shape, since that tangle is what makes the play read instantly. Dust kicked up at their feet, a few loose cream flicks, adds motion without any extra drawing.
Try varying this scene next time by swapping the pushing for a chase, same two calves, same colours, but running instead of locking trunks; keeping the pair consistent across a few paintings builds a nice little set.
Keep the horizon line low and simple behind them, just a flat sand strip, so the two calves stay the clear subject of the page.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Grey,Warm Sand,Cream
Sharing a waterhole gives you a small cast of characters without crowding the page. Paint the elephant first, trunk dipped down into a flat sage-grey water shape, then add two or three simple zebra silhouettes further back, their stripes reduced to just a handful of confident black lines rather than a full pattern.
Keep the zebras smaller and paler than the elephant so the scale and the focus stay correct; this is the subject’s proportion check, measuring their shoulder height against the elephant’s front leg keeps the herd believable rather than toy-sized.
The water’s edge is where beginners often lose the reflection entirely. A flat mirrored terracotta smudge directly beneath the elephant’s legs, painted wet-in-wet in one quick pass, reads as a reflection without needing any detail at all.
If stripes intimidate you, reduce each zebra to three or four black marks over a cream body; from this distance that reads perfectly well as a zebra.
Palette: Terracotta,Sage Grey,Cream,Payne’s Grey
Shade is the whole story here, so build it before you build the calf. Paint the mother’s legs and lower body as a tall terracotta mass, then drop a flat soft grey shadow shape beneath and beside her, slightly cooler than the warm sand ground around it.
Lay the sleeping calf’s small curled body right inside that shadow shape, legs tucked, eyes closed with one simple curved line. Because the calf sits inside shade rather than full sun, keep its colour a touch greyer than the mother’s warm terracotta so the light logic holds together.
If the shadow edge looks too hard and cuts the scene in two, soften it slightly with a damp clean brush along the border while the paint is still workable, blurring just that one line.
No grey gouache mixed yet, add a touch of the complementary sage to your terracotta rather than reaching for black; it cools the colour without deadening it, and the color mixing guide has more swaps like this one.
Palette: Terracotta,Shadow Grey,Warm Sand,Cream
Fill the whole page with just the face this time and let texture carry it. Block the broad flat shape of the forehead and trunk top in warm terracotta first, then once dry, add wrinkle lines with a dry, barely loaded brush dragged in short curved strokes so the grey breaks and catches only on the raised texture of your paper.
That dry-brush technique is the trick worth learning on this subject: a fully loaded brush gives you smooth solid lines that flatten the skin, while a dry one scuffed sideways across rough paper gives convincing cracked, aged texture in seconds.
Paint the long lashes last with the very tip of a fine round brush, a handful of short confident flicks rather than many fussy ones, and leave the eye itself small and dark with one tiny cream highlight dot.
If the wrinkles start looking like scribbles, stop adding more; four or five well-placed curved lines read as wrinkled skin far better than a dense tangle.
Palette: Terracotta,Payne’s Grey,Warm Sand,Cream
A slightly rough-toothed paper, not hot-press smooth, makes the dry-brush wrinkle technique catch properly; smooth paper lets the dry strokes glide on too evenly.
Lotus leaves give you a satisfying pattern to break up a plain water surface. Paint the water first as a flat soft sage-blue band, then once dry, stamp or paint a scatter of flat round lotus leaf shapes in a slightly darker sage across the lower half, leaving a few gaps of open water showing through.
Add the elephant wading through the middle of that pattern, legs disappearing below the leaf line so only the upper body, ears and trunk show clearly above the water’s surface. Keep the leaves smaller near the elephant’s legs and slightly larger toward the foreground for a simple sense of distance.
If the leaves end up too evenly spaced and look stamped rather than natural, nudge a few closer together and leave bigger open gaps elsewhere; real lotus leaves cluster unevenly.
A small circular object like a coin or bottle cap traced lightly in pencil gives you a quick, consistent leaf shape to paint inside if freehand circles feel wobbly.
You Will Need
- small round object to trace leaf shapes
Palette: Sage Blue,Deep Sage,Terracotta,Cream
A baobab’s trunk is almost architectural, and painting it well is mostly about not rushing the elephant past it. Block the baobab first as one wide bulbous terracotta-grey trunk with a few short bare branches at the top, then let that dry completely before the elephant walks into the scene lower down and smaller in scale.
Keep the elephant noticeably smaller than the tree trunk’s width; that size difference is the whole point of pairing them, so measure the elephant’s height against roughly a third of the baobab’s trunk width as you sketch.
A flat warm sand ground and pale cream sky keep the background simple enough that the tree’s strange swollen shape stays the clear second subject rather than competing with extra detail.
If the baobab reads too much like an ordinary tree, exaggerate the trunk’s bulge further and shrink the branches smaller still; baobabs look almost upside down, and that oddness is worth leaning into.
Palette: Terracotta Grey,Warm Sand,Terracotta,Cream
Chasing birds gives a calf a burst of pure comic energy, so lean into an off-balance pose. Paint the calf mid-stride, trunk raised, one back leg still lifted, angled toward a small scattered flock of white egrets just ahead of it across the page.
Paint the egrets as simple flat cream-white shapes with thin dark legs, keeping four or five of them at different heights to suggest they have just taken off in alarm. Leave their edges crisp against the warm sand background so the white reads as bright rather than blending into the cream sky.
Ten minutes gives you the calf and two birds blocked in flat colour; forty minutes lets you add a few motion lines trailing behind the lifted leg and vary the egrets’ wing positions so the flock feels caught in real movement rather than copied and pasted.
If the egrets vanish into a pale sky, give the sky itself a slightly warmer sand tone so the whiter birds stand out by contrast alone.
Palette: Terracotta,Cream White,Warm Sand,Payne’s Grey
This is the calmest group scene on the list, so give it the most generous negative space. Paint the acacia canopy first as one wide flat sage-green umbrella shape stretched across the top third of the page, its single thin trunk dropping straight down the centre.
Cluster three elephants of different sizes beneath it, adult, half-grown, small calf, overlapping gently so they read as one resting family rather than three separate animals placed side by side. Keep every body in the shade colour, a slightly cooler terracotta-grey, since they sit directly under the canopy rather than in open sun.
If the three elephants crowd awkwardly, space them along a loose triangle instead of a straight line, largest at the back, smallest tucked slightly forward, which reads more naturally as a resting group.
A flat warm sand ground beneath them and nothing else in the scene keeps the quiet mood intact; resist adding more animals or detail here.
Palette: Sage Green,Terracotta Grey,Warm Sand,Cream
Move the splash from solo to shared and the whole mood softens into real tenderness. Paint the adult first, trunk raised and curved toward the smaller calf standing just beside her, then add the arc of water droplets travelling between the two, same technique as the earlier solo spray but now connecting two bodies instead of one.
Keep the calf’s body angled slightly away as if flinching happily from the spray, a small gesture that reads clearly even in a flat simplified shape. The water droplets should be smallest near the mother’s trunk and slightly larger as they near the calf, giving the arc a believable sense of travel.
If the connection between the two elephants feels stiff, curve the mother’s trunk a touch more and tilt the calf’s head toward her rather than straight ahead; a little diagonal energy sells the gentleness of the gesture.
Lay your water droplets only once both bodies are completely dry, or the fine dots will bleed into soft blotches instead of staying crisp.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Grey,Sage,Cream
Dust bathing is a great excuse to practise soft edges against a hard-edged subject. Paint the elephant’s body first with the crisp flat edges used everywhere else in this style, then switch technique entirely for the dust cloud itself, a loose wet-in-wet bloom of warm sand colour dropped onto damp paper above its back.
Let that dust bloom spread on its own rather than controlling it too much; a little unpredictability in the cloud’s edge is exactly what separates it from the crisp body beneath it. Once it is dry, you can lift a few lighter specks out of the cloud with a clean damp brush to suggest scattered particles catching the light.
If the cloud dries too solid and flat, lift small irregular patches out immediately with a barely damp brush and a tissue, working quickly before the paint fully sets.
No separate wash for the dust, thin your terracotta body colour with extra water and white gouache instead; it keeps the whole piece in one warm family of colour.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Sand,Cream,Payne’s Grey
Nothing needs more deliberate imbalance than a newborn calf learning to walk. Draw the legs slightly splayed and uneven in length rather than matched and tidy, one knee bent a touch more than the others, so the pose reads as unsteady the moment you block it in.
Keep the calf’s body rounder and softer than an adult’s, almost a single plump oval with short stubby legs attached, and paint it a paler, pinker terracotta to read clearly as very young. A low, close framing with lots of open cream ground around those uncertain legs reinforces just how small and new this calf is.
If the wobble reads as a drawing mistake rather than a baby animal, exaggerate it slightly further; a too-steady calf loses the whole charm of this idea.
Browse a few newborn elephant photos before you start, since the proportions of a very young calf, bigger head, shorter trunk, differ more from an adult than you might expect.
Palette: Pale Terracotta,Warm Sand,Payne’s Grey,Cream
Pairing two very different animal shapes under one tree is a nice test of scale. Paint the tree canopy first as a single flat sage-green mass, then place the giraffe’s tall narrow body on one side, patterned with just a few flat terracotta patches rather than a full spotted coat, and the elephant’s broad low body on the other.
Let the giraffe’s height roughly match the tree’s canopy line while the elephant stays lower and wider beneath it; that contrast of tall-and-thin against low-and-broad is what makes the pairing visually interesting rather than just two animals side by side.
If the giraffe’s spots turn into a fussy all-over pattern, reduce them to five or six larger flat terracotta shapes scattered down the neck and body only, leaving the legs plain.
A flat warm sand ground beneath both animals and nothing else keeps the pairing the clear focus of the piece.
Palette: Sage Green,Terracotta,Warm Sand,Cream
Long curved tusks are the detail to get right here, and they are easier than they look if you treat them as one simple arc rather than a tapered line. Paint the head and body first in warm terracotta, then add both tusks as smooth cream-coloured curves sweeping outward and slightly up from the mouth, matched in length and angle to each other.
Surround the lower half of the body with tall dry grass, painted as a cluster of thin upright strokes in warm sand and olive, overlapping the legs so the elephant looks genuinely standing within the grass rather than in front of a flat backdrop.
If one tusk ends up longer or more curved than the other, trim or extend it immediately while the gouache is still workable rather than leaving the mismatch; tusks read as a pair, and any asymmetry shows instantly.
Keep the grass strokes varied in height and angle rather than all parallel, which is what makes dry grass look windblown rather than stencilled.
Palette: Terracotta,Cream,Warm Sand,Olive
This hug is built almost entirely on one curved shape, so get that curve right before anything else. Paint the mother’s trunk as a single smooth terracotta arc that wraps fully around the smaller calf’s shoulders, the two bodies tucked close together rather than merely standing side by side.
Build the calf’s body slightly inside the mother’s silhouette where the trunk wraps round, so the overlap genuinely reads as an embrace rather than two separate shapes that happen to touch. Keep both faces turned gently toward each other for the warmest version of this pose.
If the trunk’s curve looks stiff or mechanical, loosen your wrist and paint it in one continuous unhurried stroke rather than several short corrected ones; a single confident sweep holds far more warmth than a careful traced line.
A flat cream background with no other detail at all keeps every bit of attention on that one gentle, curved gesture.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Grey,Cream,Payne’s Grey
Sunrise light and a flat reflection make an easy pair once you understand the mirroring trick. Paint the elephant’s silhouette first against a soft pink-cream sky, keeping the body entirely flat and dark since sunrise backlighting hides most surface detail anyway.
Flip that same silhouette directly beneath it for the reflection, slightly softened and a touch paler, painted wet-in-wet onto the water band so its edges blur gently rather than staying as crisp as the real elephant above.
Light sits low and behind the elephant here, which is why the body reads as a simple dark shape rather than full terracotta detail; resist the urge to paint ears and wrinkles into a backlit silhouette, since that flatness is exactly what makes sunrise scenes work.
If the still water doesn’t look still, run one thin horizontal cream line across the reflection to suggest the water’s edge meeting the shore, which settles the whole illusion at a glance.
Palette: Deep Terracotta,Pale Pink,Sage Grey,Cream
After the quiet drama of the sunrise, settle into something purely cosy. Paint the calf lying flat on its side on a simple sandbank shape, legs stretched out, trunk curled loosely against the ground, then add one small bird perched right on the fold of its ear.
Keep the sandbank a flat warm sand shape with one thin darker edge where it meets the water, just enough to place the scene without adding real background detail. The bird should be small and still, a simple curved shape with a tucked head, resting rather than active, to match the calf’s sleepy mood.
If the calf’s lying pose looks stiff, round out the belly and soften the leg angles further than feels natural at first; a sleeping animal collapses into soft curves far more than a standing one.
No reference of a lying elephant handy, a sleeping dog or cat photo gives you the same basic curled, heavy-bodied pose to adapt.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Sand,Sage,Cream
This is the one piece in the set that steps away from the open savanna, so let the green forest change your palette deliberately. Paint the background first as layered flat sage and deep green shapes, each one slightly lighter than the last toward the top of the page to suggest mist swallowing the distance.
Place the elephant lower and smaller than usual within all that green, since Asian elephants read as a little more compact and rounded than their African cousins, with smaller ears sitting closer to the head. Keep the mist itself as a thin band of pale cream wash laid directly over the furthest trees once they are dry, softening just the top edge of the background.
If the misty effect disappears once everything dries matte, that flat opacity is normal for gouache; thin your cream wash further with water so it stays a genuine veil rather than another solid layer.
Swap your usual warm terracotta for a slightly greyer, cooler version here, since Asian elephants in dense forest light read less warm than herds out on open grass.
Palette: Cool Grey Terracotta,Sage Green,Deep Green,Cream
This small gesture is quieter than trunk to tail, since here only the calf’s trunk reaches forward while the mother walks ahead unaware. Paint the mother’s back half first, tail hanging low, then bring the calf in slightly behind and to one side, trunk curled gently around the very tip of that tail.
Keep the calf’s head tilted slightly up toward its mother’s back, a small detail that reads as trust rather than simple following. The connection point, trunk around tail tip, is the one spot worth painting with real care; everything else in the scene can stay loose and flat.
If the two animals end up looking too far apart to plausibly connect, shorten the gap between them until the calf’s trunk can genuinely reach without stretching unnaturally.
For more on keeping animal groups like this one consistent across a painting, the cute painting ideas page has several similar parent-and-young pairings worth a look.
Palette: Terracotta,Warm Grey,Warm Sand,Cream
Bring several of the earlier skills together for this one, overlap, reflection, warm light, on a slightly bigger scale. Paint a flat golden-orange sky band first, then the river beneath it in a matching but slightly cooler warm tone, before building three or four elephants along the near bank, each overlapping the next.
Vary each elephant’s pose a little, one drinking, one walking, one simply standing, so the group reads as a real gathered herd rather than repeated copies of one shape. Keep reflections beneath each elephant soft and slightly blurred, since the golden light itself does most of the mood-setting work here.
If the whole scene starts to look flat and samey in colour, add one cooler note, a touch of your sage accent in the shadow sides of the elephants, so the warm golden light has something to contrast against.
For more ideas on building up a layered landscape background like this river scene, the gouache landscape ideas page is worth a browse.
Palette: Golden Orange,Terracotta,Sage,Cream
Food makes a fun, slightly silly change of pace here, and the contrast of colours does most of the work. Paint the elephant’s head and raised trunk first in warm terracotta, then place a whole round watermelon, deep green rind with a flash of pink flesh where it has cracked, held right at the mouth.
Keep the watermelon’s green a cool, almost blue-leaning tone so it sits apart clearly from the warm terracotta skin around it, and leave one small triangular bite or crack in pale pink to show the crunch already underway.
If the watermelon disappears visually against the body, outline its rind with one thin dark grey line before filling in colour; that small boundary keeps two busy warm and cool shapes from blurring together.
No deep green gouache mixed, sage plus a touch of Payne’s grey gets you close enough, and it keeps the fruit’s colour within the same family as the rest of your palette.
Palette: Terracotta,Watermelon Green,Watermelon Pink,Cream
End the playful side of the list with a small comic standoff: a calf trumpeting, trunk raised and curled, ears flared wide, at a single butterfly hovering just out of reach. Paint the calf’s startled pose first, ears pushed fully forward and flat rather than relaxed, since that single change reads as alarm immediately.
Keep the butterfly tiny and bright, two simple symmetrical wing shapes in a colour that pops against the warm palette, a soft coral or muted gold works well without breaking the overall scheme. Its small size against the calf’s big reaction is the whole joke of the piece.
If the ears don’t read as flared and alarmed, push them further forward and flatter against the head than feels natural; subtlety undersells the comedy this idea depends on.
A flat cream background with no other scenery keeps every bit of focus on that lopsided size contrast between calf and butterfly.
Palette: Terracotta,Coral,Payne’s Grey,Cream
Close the savanna scenes with something taller than the elephant itself for once. Paint a row of sunflowers first, flat round golden heads on simple straight sage-green stems, taller than the elephant’s back, then walk the elephant through the lower half of that field so the flowers genuinely rise above it.
Keep the sunflower heads varied slightly in size and angle rather than identical and evenly spaced, which keeps the field looking grown rather than planted in a perfect row. The elephant itself can stay simple and calm here, since the flowers are doing most of the visual work in this piece.
If the field competes too much with the elephant for attention, mute the sunflowers’ yellow slightly toward a dustier gold rather than a pure bright one, keeping it within the same warm family as the rest of your palette.
Group a cluster of three or four closer, larger sunflowers near the elephant’s head and let the rest scatter smaller toward the background for an easy sense of depth.
Palette: Dusty Gold,Sage Green,Terracotta,Cream
Finish the set on the gentlest note of all: two older elephants facing each other, trunk tips touching in a simple greeting. Paint both bodies in a slightly deeper, more weathered terracotta than the younger elephants elsewhere in this list, with a few extra wrinkle lines around the eyes to suggest their age.
Curve both trunks toward the same meeting point at the centre of the page, tips just touching, so the whole composition balances evenly on that one small contact point. Keep the two poses nearly mirrored, since that symmetry is what makes a greeting between equals feel calm rather than hurried.
If the trunks miss each other or overlap awkwardly, nudge one slightly until the tips meet exactly at a single clear point; a near-miss reads as an error rather than a gesture.
A flat warm sand ground and soft cream sky, with nothing else in the frame, let this final quiet greeting close the whole series on a calm, settled note.
Palette: Deep Terracotta,Warm Sand,Payne’s Grey,Cream
What to Do Next
Choose one elephant, mix your four or five colours first, and work the biggest shape before anything else goes on the page. A medium-weight sheet of gouache paper and an afternoon are really all this list asks for.
Frequently Asked Questions
What gouache colours do I need for elephant painting?
A warm terracotta, a sand or ochre, a cool grey, sage green and cream cover nearly every scene in this list. Mix deeper shadow tones from terracotta plus a touch of grey rather than buying separate shadow colours.
How do I stop elephant skin looking flat and boring?
Add a handful of dry-brush wrinkle lines once the base colour is fully dry, dragged with a barely loaded brush across textured paper. A few confident curved lines read as wrinkled skin far better than smooth, even colour alone.
What paper works best for gouache elephant scenes?
A medium-weight paper with some texture, around 300gsm, holds flat washes and dry-brush texture well without buckling. Hot-press smooth paper works too, though it makes dry-brush wrinkle effects harder to achieve.
How do I paint a convincing herd without it looking repetitive?
Vary size, pose and colour depth between each elephant and overlap them so the furthest ones are smaller, paler and simpler. Three or four elephants with different actions, drinking, walking, standing, read as a real gathered group rather than copies.
Can I paint these elephant ideas without gouache?
Acrylic paint gives a very similar flat matte finish and works well as a substitute on any of these ideas. Thick watercolor with less water than usual also gets close, though the colours will sit slightly more transparent.