White Chalk Pencil (optional)
6″x 6″ Canvas
Variety of Paintbrushes
Acrylic Paint
Colors I Used:
Master’s Touch: Viridi, Titanium White, & Yellow Medium
Blickrylic Burnt Umber (Master’s Touch also has a Burnt Umber)
See links below for some of the supplies I am using.
Mrs. Macre’s Art Class
How to Paint a Pumpkin
For Art Teachers and Personal Use
I decided I needed a few more Fall decorations but I didn’t want to spend too much, so I pulled out my paints and a canvas that I already had. I decided I would share my steps here in a tutorial. You can use the same colors that I used or you can use traditional fall colors if you prefer.
I have also included my line drawing of the pumpkin. You can download it here and trace it onto your canvas if you need to or you can draw your own pumpkin.
Supplies I used:
White Chalk Pencil (optional)
6″x 6″ Canvas
Variety of Paintbrushes
Acrylic Paint
Colors I Used:
Master’s Touch: Viridi, Titanium White, & Yellow Medium
Blickrylic Burnt Umber (Master’s Touch also has a Burnt Umber)
See links below for some of the supplies I am using.
Step 1 – Preparing the canvas
Paint the entire canvas with a thin coat of Burnt Umber (brown). I always paint the canvas with a contrasting, but complementary color. This prevents the white of the canvas from showing through. It also adds some interest to the layers of paint.
Step 2 – Drawing
Draw the outline of the pumpkin using the white chalk pencil. Download my sketch here.
You can use a regular pencil, but I like the white chalk pencil because it can easily be erased to make corrections, and the white shows up on the dark background.
Transferring the drawing – You can freehand draw the pumpkin OR transfer my drawing onto your canvas. You can use the chalk pencil to color on the back of the printed line sketch then trace over the line drawing. If you do not have a chalk pencil or a piece of chalk you could use carbon tracing paper.
Step 3 – Background
Using the aqua blue (Master’s Touch Viridi) color and a thin liner brush, I painted around the outside edge of the pumpkin. Then I used a wider brush to fill in the entire background and sides of the canvas with the turquoise blue. I add white (Titanium white) paint to my brush to add highlights to the brushstrokes.
Tips :
I leave the brushstrokes to add texture.
After the first layer dries I go over the background again with another layer of color allowing some of the first layer to show through in places. This adds depth to the background and covers most of the brown surface.
Step 4 – Pumpkin
I mix white with a little Burnt Umber (brown) in two or three shades of off-white. Using the darkest shade, I use a thin brush to outline the edge of the pumpkin. Then using the lighter shade of white+brown mixture (mostly white), I fill in the sections of the pumpkin leaving the darker outlines showing. (I go back later to finish the white parts and add more shading.)
Step 5 – Stem
Using the Burnt Umber (brown), I use a thin brush to paint the stem of the pumpkin. While the paint is still wet I dip the same brush into the off-white paint and paint streaks onto the stem to create the ridges. These ridges are usually not perfectly straight. They kind of twist on the stem like a candy cane stripe. Alternate between the brown and the off-white, using more brown, making sure the two colors partially mix and do not leave solid stripes.
Step 6 – Leaf 
The leaf is optional. You can leave it off if you just want the stem.
Mix a little yellow and off-white paint with the aqua blue (Master’s Touch Viridi) that I used for the background to get a soft green. I wanted the color to be soft like the rest of the colors in the painting. I did not want a bright green. I used my thin brush to paint the outline of the leaf and then filled in the center with the same soft green color. After the first layer dried I added a highlight of a lighter shade of the same green on one edge of the leaf.
Step 7 – Pumpkin shading
After adding the stem and leaf details, the first layer of the pumpkin was dry, so I went back to add some shading. By adding shadows and highlights you can create the illusion of the round forms that you see on a pumpkin. Using a half-inch flat brush and the darker shade of off-white, I painted along the edge of one section of the pumpkin. While that paint was wet, I added a lighter shade of off-white. The two colors partially blend together. Use strokes that go up and down and follow the curve of the edges of the pumpkin. I also added some pure white paint strokes in the center of each section of the pumpkin. The lighter white creates highlights that come forward creating the illusion of form. Paint the lighter highlights in the middle and the same side of each section.
Repeat this step for each section of the pumpkin.
Tips for shading:
Shadows recede.
Highlights come forward.
Step 8 – Finish and touch-ups
Finally, look over your painting and darken any shadows that need it and add highlights where needed. More shading and highlights will add more dimension and depth to your pumpkin.
Go over any edges that need sharpening to avoid losing details.
Make sure all sides of the canvas are painted with the same brushstrokes used on the front of the canvas. The painted sides of the canvas look more finished and can be displayed without a frame.
Step 9 – Sign and Seal
Sign your art in an inconspicuous place.
I always sign my art but I don’t like the signature to be a distraction so on this one I decided to paint my signature on the side edge. If there is room I usually paint it on the bottom right side corner.
To Seal or Not to Seal
An acrylic varnish or sealant will protect the painting and even out the sheen of the painting.
Some acrylic paints have a different sheen to them. Some are flat, some are glossy, some are somewhere in between. In order to even out the sheen all over the canvas, you can use an acrylic varnish. I like to use a spray-on varnish. There are both spray-on and brush-on that are good. I have used both with success.
Have fun and go paint a Pumpkin!
I hope this is helpful to anyone who wants to paint a pumpkin. Please let me know in the comments below if this was helpful to you or your students or if you have any questions.
Mrs. Macre ♥Art
How to Paint a White Pumpkin on Canvas
Thank you so much for all of the love on my fall mantel with the pumpkin painting! I filmed the process so I wanted to share with you how to paint white pumpkin on canvas acrylic painting tutorial! If you are looking for my other paint a pumpkin on canvas tutorial, that post is here. This pumpkin tutorial painting is easy for beginners, even if you feel like you can’t really paint, you can do this because it doesn’t require any art talent at all! It’s different because it uses a chip brush and a palette knife, which creates a really cool texture, but you can use a round brush or flat brush if you feel more comfortable doing so. I love painting with palette knives. That’s how I created this abstract. With this pumpkin painting project, the more lopsided your pumpkin turns out, the better! Step-by-step instructions are under the video.
(This post contains affiliate links)
This entire tutorial right now is in video format and takes about 24 minutes to watch the entire thing. I’ve broken it up into 3 separate videos for ease of watching. The front half of the stem painting portion is on the back end of the pumpkin painting portion (because I realized I cropped it weird and didn’t realize it until it was too late to fix it.). You can find supplies needed for the project here. There is a complete supply list at the end of the post. Right now the video is not closed captioned, but that will be coming soon. I have a quick recap of the steps listed below each video if you need a quick step by step refresh or clarification.
Supply list: Canvas size of choice, chip brush, angled palette knife (or paintbrush), skinny palette knife, heavy body acrylic paint in titanium white (or orange paint), off white, black,sap green, burnt orange,raw umber, periwinkle blue, yellow ochre. Find supplies here.
Part 2- Painting the pumpkin–video
Step 1: This step is after base coating your entire canvas first. To paint your pumpkin, you can just go for it, or use piece of chalk to draw a thin line sideways football shape in the the center of the canvas. Place it in the middle of where you want your pumpkin to be. Leave room at the top of the canvas for a stem. One each side of that football shape, paint a letter “C” connecting the top and the bottom of the pumpkin to the football. Repeat on both sides. This creates the pumpkin basic shape.
Step 2: After painting your pumpkin shapes, use your palette knife or flat brush to paint in the chalk lines using even strokes in the entire pumpkin with the white paint (if you want an orange pumpkin use an orange hue paint). Leave the edges where the C’s touch unpainted as shading for the pumpkin ridges.
Step 3: If you find you’ve painted in your ribs and there is no difference between the pumpkin ridges, you can either do touch-ups with the black background paint, or you can use a color such as burnt umber or raw umber to define the ribs of the pumpkin.
Step 4: Use slightly watered down black paint to paint a shadow and create darker shading under the pumpkin. This step is shown in the painting a pumpkin stem video.
A few tips to painting your rustic pumpkin:
Pick up some white heavy bodied acrylic paint on your angled palette knife. Use the knife to drag the paint down the canvas on a slight angle in a football shape in the middle then pick up more paint as needed. Paint a shallow letter “C” on each side of the football making the ribs. Fill in as much or as little as preferred. Add small touches of blue paint onto the ribs and off-white/cream colored paint to add depth and interest. Then add the stem by picking up raw umber ( or another brown paint) and wiggling the paint onto the canvas at the top. Once you have the base painted, your ready to paint the stem!
Part 3-Watch : How to Paint a Pumpkin Stem Here
Decorating for fall or Halloween? You can also find the pillow version or art print/canvas version of this painting to purchase here.
Paint Your Own Pumpkin Canvas
It’s Mindy on the blog today from My Creative Scoop with another fun 5 min craft, this time how to Paint Your Own Pumpkin!
I just love Fall! I don’t do a whole lot of Halloween decorating but I love setting out ‘Fall’ themed decor and going through all of the isles in the stores and looking at all those gorgeous oranges, browns, golds, yellows. LOVE. So what better way to decorate your home than a canvas painting.. made by YOU! Yes, by you! Today I’m going to take you step by step to Paint Your Own Pumpkin Canvas. You can make this any size pumpkin on any size canvas. There’s no wrong or right way, art is art.
Gather some acrylic paints. Brown, orange, olive,reddish brown, black and white. You’ll also want a cup of water, a couple paper towels, a flat brush and a narrow brush… let’s get started!
Step 1. Create your pumpkin. I just used my flat paint brush start by creating a top of a heart and do the same for the bottom. You do NOT want this to look even or try to be perfect. Just go with the flow of the brush.
Step 2. Wipe off the paint and using the the tip of the flat brush on one side put a dab of white paint and the other put the orange again.
Step 3. Make sure the white tip is facing on up and then create the lines in your pumpkin rounding down towards the bottom of the pumpkin. We aren’t giving the bottom part highlights, there we will add shadows.
Step 4. Take the thin narrow brush and use the reddish brown paint to add a little definition to the the bumps in the pumpkin. This time you will use the reddish brown on the bottom part of the pumpkin along with the top. Notice I covered up those white highlights, so I re-added those in the next photo. (Make sure you wipe off the brush with water and your paper towel between colors.)
Step 5. Now I’ve added those white highlights back to the top. Then taking the brown and a hint of black adding some shadows to the bottom.
Step 6. Then take your brown paint and create your stem.
Step 7. Fill the stem in with the brown- but then pick up a little color with the tip of the narrow brush and make that little oval giving the stem that 3d look (come down the stem on each side just a little). After wiping your brush really good, use the olive color and make vines coming from the stem.
Step 8. I picked up some brown, white and a little black and created this mucky shadow.. it’s a shadow make it look a little messy.
Step 9. Wipe your brush off and add only more white staring on the outer part of the shadow, just to soften it a little.
How cute is that!? If you try to Paint Your Own Pumpkin Canvas, I would LOVE to see it! Please post your link and share it with us.
Thanks for stopping by today. For more DIY projects and inspiration please visit My Creative Scoop.
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