Painting Pumpkins on Canvas

Yes, I teach art. But, as a parent, art is a great way to spend time with your child, and make some cute art for your home. Here's a lesson I've done before with a class, but YOU could easily create these with your kids. Just have fun with it, and you will end up with some great art for the fall season. Add your own personal touches, like words, patterns and color schemes.

 First, I teach students how I draw a pumpkin-use the steps above. I always teach that before you paint to practice your drawing and plan your painting. And I love talking about painting fruits, and stress that there's not such thing as a "perfect" pumpkin. They can be fat, tall, bumpy, lop-sided, etc. Students painted on a 12 x 12 stretched canvas with acrylic paints.

When drawing your design onto the canvas, DON'T use a pencil. You will have a very hard time covering the pencil and correcting mistakes. Use a light color paint or chalk. I have students use baby wipes to correct mistakes. They remove wet paint from a canvas almost like it's a dry erase board.

For younger children, just coach them on what to do one step at a time. For instance, "First we are going to paint our pumpkin shape. What shape do you see? Now try that on your canvas." Remind them to paint big. If they mess up, show them how easy it is to erase it and try again.

Outlining with a darker color helps the colors "pop" and gives the art a more "finished" look.

We added a little green puff paint for the vines and tricked out our edges with stripes. Students were kindergarten through 2nd grade (one fourth grader), and completed their paintings in a 2-hour workshop.