Pour painting pumpkins is a classic technique that worked perfectly to decorate E’s entry to the big pumpkin exhibition at her school! E really enjoyed both the process and the result, and I was very impressed with how well she paced herself. (E was 35 months old.) This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Thank you for your support!
Get Ready for Some Creative Fun.
The leaves are changing colors, the air is getting crisp, and pumpkin spice is back on the menu—there’s no doubt that fall is in full swing! Painting pumpkins is the perfect family-friendly activity that blends creativity and seasonal joy. It’s also a great activity with friends and something anyone can do! If you want a visual, I shared a couple Pumpkin Painting process videos on Instagram:
What You’ll Need:
Pumpkins: Head to the local pumpkin patch and grab a pumpkin of any size! Think about where this pumpkin is going to live this fall, and that can help you decide the size you need. Pro tip: Get a pumpkin with a medium/long stem. This is great to hold onto while you’re painting! It’s also another detail you can paint!
Acrylic Paints: This is my favorite type of paint for a pumpkin. You can find them at any art supply store, places like Target/Walmart or even repurpose old paints from previous art projects. Be sure to grab a variety of colors to let your creativity flow.
Paint Brushes/Sponges/ Paint Pens: Choose a selection of paint brushes with various shapes and sizes. These will come in handy for different details and brushstroke techniques. I’ve used round sponges for dots, cosmetic sponge wedges, and other random supplies. Get creative..use what you have! Acrylic Oil Based Paint Pens are great for lettering and small details.
Paper Towels: Keep some paper towels nearby to clean your brushes, spills, and wipe off the pumpkin.
Palette: An old plastic plate or an artist’s palette will help you mix and blend your paints. I used a palette pad I already had, a scrap piece of cardboard can work, too!
Newspaper or Plastic Sheets: Lay down some newspaper or plastic sheets to protect your work area. Pumpkin painting can get a bit messy, but this step will save your surfaces and make cleanup a breeze.
Now that you’ve got your supplies ready, it’s time to dive into the creative process! Keep in mind, all steps are optional, so do what works for you!
Step-by-Step Guide to Pumpkin Painting:
1. Prep Your Workspace: Set up your workspace by covering your table with newspapers, plastic sheets old cardboard box. whatever you have laying around! Make sure you have all your paints, brushes, and water containers ready.
2. Clean Your Pumpkins: Wipe your pumpkins clean with a damp paper towel/cloth to remove any dirt or dust.
3. Base Coat: Begin by applying a base coat of paint to your pumpkin. This can be a single color or a combination of colors. Allow the base coat to dry completely before moving on. I did this for the pumpkins I lettered on (Video 1), but I skipped this step when I was just painting a design on the pumpkin (Video 2).
4. Plan Out Your Design: You can do this step directly on the pumpkin or sketch it out on a piece of paper.
5. Start Painting: Begin applying your chosen colors to your pumpkin. This is where you get to be creative, so have fun with this! Whether you’re creating a spooky jack-o’-lantern face, a beautiful autumn scene, or something entirely unique, let your creativity flow.
6. Add Details, Accents, Lettering etc.: Add the finer details to your pumpkin, such as facial features, scenery elements, or any other design components. If you’re layering on paint, let the first coat dry before adding more! Pro Tip: If you want to paint the pumpkin stem, do it last! . that way you can just leave the pumpkin sitting to dry without touching it anymore.
7. Let It Dry: Allow your painted pumpkin to dry thoroughly. This may take a few hours, depending on the number of layers and the thickness of your paint.
9. Show it off!!: Find a fun place to put your pumpkin, share it online. you worked hard-show it off!
Happy pumpkin painting!
If you’re still looking for some Halloween fun. check out these Spooky Cute Printables!
Tips for painting pumpkins: faux and real
I am back for the second part of my three part pumpkin tutorial. In part one, I showed you how to make fabric pumpkins (like the gingham ones in the picture below) and part three will be a finger knitted yarn pumpkin. Today I will give you tips for painting pumpkins. I painted both faux and real pumpkins this year and will be giving you some pointers for both.
How to paint faux pumpkins
We will start off with faux pumpkins. I loved painting my faux pumpkins. First, because I had some old ones around and I hated the color of them. I bought them when white pumpkins first started becoming popular but they were more of a yellow than cream or white. I never really used them so they were the perfect ones to use as guinea pigs. I think they look 100% better!
The next reason why I loved to paint them is because they were so easy to paint. The paint went on easily and dried quickly. Another bonus is that I can paint them again in the future if I get tired of the color I painted them. Let’s get to the tips for painting faux pumpkins:
1. Use two different sized brushes.
If you need to paint around the stem, it is going to be hard to do that with a big brush. To eliminate paint all over the stem and to get right up next to it, use a small brush for that detail work.
Then finish the rest of the pumpkin with a bigger brush. It will speed up the process.
2. Paint two coats.
One coat will look too splotchy. The faux pumpkins were easy enough to hold by the stem to paint the whole thing at one time. By the time I was painting the bottom, the top was almost dry so I laid them upside down to dry the rest of the way. Let the pumpkin dry completely before painting the second coat.
3. Use MATTE acrylic or chalk paint
I tried both on my faux pumpkins and honestly I did not notice a difference between the two kinds of paints. They both went on easily and dried quickly. The acrylic paint is the less expensive option of the two so in my opinion, save yourself some money and go with acrylic. The one thing I did notice however was make sure to use a matte finish. I had this green semi-gloss acrylic paint around and thought it would be fine. I did not like the sheen it gave to the faux pumpkins but of course that is a personal opinion.
4. Use shading on your colored pumpkins to make them look more realistic.
I did not do this on the white pumpkins that I painted, I felt it was unnecessary. For the green pumpkins, I used a darker green (Apple Barrel Moss Green) mixed with the light green color to shade the ribs (the indented lines) on the pumpkins. Just follow along the ribs with your smaller brush and fan it out slightly. Don’t worry, it does not have to be perfect!
Then using the bigger brush, I LIGHTLY dry brushed on some of the antique white paint. In addition to adding some shading, this also helped to cut down some of the glossiness.
I also painted a dark green pumpkin with the Moss green color. You can see it here in the back.
I will be for sure painting more faux pumpkins in the future! I loved the transformation I got and how easy it was. Also they did not take long to paint, I did these in one evening, while watching TV!
How to paint real pumpkins
The real pumpkins were a little harder to do. While you are able to paint real pumpkins, there are a couple other things you need to take into consideration. I started by painting some mini orange pumpkins green like the one below.
These smaller pumpkins were fairly easy to paint. I used chalk paint for these mini pumpkins and again did not notice much difference from acrylic that I used on some bigger pumpkins. I have read that you should not use spray paint on a real pumpkin as it does not let the pumpkin breathe and the pumpkin might explode!? While I don’t know if that is true, I was not willing to risk it! Ha!
Just like with the faux pumpkins, I used 2 different size brushes, although bigger versions for these bigger pumpkins.
I found some gigantic orange pumpkins at Walmart this year for $4 each! However, I wanted to put some white pumpkins outside this year but did not want to pay the bigger price tag for them. So I figured I could paint the orange monster pumpkins! Here are my tips for painting real pumpkins:
1. Wash your pumpkins
Since real pumpkins grow in the ground, they are bound to have dirt on them that will not let your paint adhere to the surface. You can use a little bleach when washing them to help them last longer. I just used soap and water for these. Look how big they are! Our farmhouse sink is pretty deep and these still barley fit in there!
2. Lay a towel or better yet, parchment paper, underneath the pumpkins.
I originally laid a towel under the pumpkins but later used parchment paper so when I had to lay the pumpkin on it’s side to paint the bottom, the paint on the pumpkin would not stick to the counter top and rub off.
3. Use a latex primer first
First off, I need to tell you that I did not do this. I did some research after the fact of painting pumpkins to find out how to avoid some of the issues that I had. So, I can’t say that this works for sure but I read that it helps to give the paint something to stick to. The biggest problem with painting real pumpkins is their waxy surface. While the paint does adhere to it, it is EASILY scratched off. I experienced this with both the mini pumpkins and the big pumpkins.
The hardest part was trying to paint over a previously painted portion or in doing a second coat. If the first coat was not completely dry, the paint brush would rub off the first coat. To get around this, I made sure I had plenty of paint on the brush and tried not to go over an area too much.
This picture shows half of a second coat but you can see some areas where the first coat came off. This was easily touched up later when the pumpkin was completely dry but made it a little bit of a pain in the painting process. I could see where the primer could potentially help this.
4. Let the pumpkins dry overnight before painting the bottom.
I did not want to risk the paint chipping off by laying it on it’s side too soon after painting it, so I let them dry overnight. Looking good so far right?
I did not completely paint the bottom since you would not see that anyway.
Here is my last and most important tip for painting real pumpkins:
5. DO NOT put them outside in freezing temperatures!
Okay, this one I learned from experience. We have had a really cold October this year and it got below freezing the other night. I had not gotten pictures taken of the pumpkins outside yet and literally when we went outside to take some pictures for this post, we discovered this.
Noooooo. I was so bummed! The freezing temps must have expanded the pumpkins and cracked the paint!! The other side was not too bad so you can get the idea of how good they looked previously.
Now I have pumpkins that have white paint chipping off of them!! Ugh! Well, you live and you learn. On the bright side, I guess this is a way to achieve a crackled look if that is what you want! I did also have the mini green pumpkins in a lantern on the front porch, but those are surviving fine so far! It is probably because of their smaller size, less to expand? Or they may be sheltered enough from the lantern.
I think I will be sticking to painting faux pumpkins in the future, or leaving real painted pumpkins indoors. If you live in a less cold climate, these would work just fine. They were outside for several weeks previous to this and even survived rain so I don’t think you should have an issue. Hopefully these tips for painting pumpkins will help you! Let me know if you try the primer tip and how it works out for you! Hopefully you have better luck!
For pour painting pumpkins, you’ll need:
- Pumpkin.
- Acrylic paint.
- A bowl, cup or similar that the pumpkin can sit on (optional).
- Heavy paper, several layers of newspaper, foil or a tarp to cover the area around the pumpkin.
Note: Acrylic paint is not washable and you won’t get it out of fabric after it dries. I’ve had good luck with simply wiping small dry spots off our table and E’s high chair with a sponge, though, even several that I didn’t discover until a few days later. I was even able to pull the paint off the bowl. You should be okay with most non-porous surfaces, and you can wash it off skin fairly easily as well but make sure to wear clothes that you don’t mind having end up with a few acrylic “decorations”. We used acrylic paint because it sticks to the pumpkin better than washable paints do. It’s up to you to decide if your child is ready for it or if you’re better off going with more easily washable types of paints.
I pretty much expected E to just squeeze out as much paint as she possibly could, so I went with 2 ounce bottles of acrylic paint to impose a natural limit on how much paint she could use. They’re also a great size for little hands. As it turned out, s he didn’t come close to using all the paint, and was actually very meticulous and mindful about which color went where and how much she used.
We were originally going to do this outside but once again, it was too windy, so we took it inside to our dining room table. No reason for E to take off her sunglasses, though
I set some ground rules, mainly concerning using one color at a time, putting the lid back on and putting the bottle back before grabbing a new color, and generally trying to keep the paint off her hands and clothes.
She started out with a penchant for painting the back of the pumpkin
but after this “incident”
and my gentle reminder that I could turn the pumpkin for her, she stuck to the front and asked when she wanted to paint a spot she wasn’t able to reach easily.
She tried different hand positions
and took quite a bit of time to just look at the paint running down the sides of the pumpkin and plan her next move.
This was the only time she couldn’t resist and stuck her finger in there.
I love how the paint puddled at the bottom of the overturned bowl.
Here’s the finished pumpkin:
I was a bit concerned about the length of time it would take to dry but to my surprise, the paint on the pumpkin was mostly dry the next morning (after little more than 12 hours). The advantage of the paint running down is that it doesn’t get incredibly thick. The puddle at the bottom took quite a while longer to dry completely. We didn’t handle the pumpkin until 3.5 days after we painted it, and E was able to carry it around and take it to school with no problems.
Additional notes:
- You can do it this with any kind of pumpkin. I really wanted to use a real pumpkin because of the exhibition, and I wanted it to be small enough for E to carry around but if you use a craft pumpkin, you can pull it out every year, and a larger pumpkin would look great as well.
- If you don’t have acrylic paint, you can make your own by mixing tempera paint and glue.
- If you’d rather not take the chance with acrylic paint, the process will be just as much fun with other types of paint, and if you don’t handle the pumpkin too much, the paint should still stick to it for a while.
How have your kids decorated their pumpkins this year? Leave a comment!
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