How to draw a mermaid, step by step
Draw a mermaid in seven steps: a round face, long wavy hair down both sides, the eyes and smile, arms, the body curving into a tail, and a wide fin at the end. The tail is one long S-curve — drawing it as a straight cone is the usual mistake.
Before you start
- The whole figure leans. Draw the body as a soft S from the shoulders down to the fin.
- Hair covers the shoulders. It saves you from drawing a neck, which children find fiddly.
- The fin is two curves meeting at a point, wider than you expect.
Step by step
- Draw the long flowing hair
- Draw the face and bangs
The remaining 5 steps are in the app
This guide shows how the mermaid begins. The full set of 7 steps — plus the colouring stage at the end — lives inside Draw Along, where each line draws itself on screen and your child traces over it.
What usually goes wrong
- Making the tail straight. A straight tail looks like a skirt.
- Drawing hands. Rounded ends work better and nobody notices.
- Making the fin too small — it should be about as wide as the shoulders.
What age is this for?
Ages 5-9. Children who like drawing princesses usually take to this one immediately.
Drawing it in the app
The S-curve is the only hard part, and it is the kind of thing that clicks the moment you watch someone else draw it once. In Draw Along it is a single animated stroke your child traces before moving on.