Let's Add Sprinkles: Painting Pumpkins

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Painting Pumpkins

I was tickled that I was able to find a print

to match the cherry motif I had in the kitchen this summer.

I wanted a pumpkin painting but I didn't really think I would be able to run up to the thrift store and find one.

Rebekah did a series of apples for me a few years ago but I hated to ask her to do some more paintings.

I had some success painting these cherries with watercolors

this past spring. Since the cherries were easy and I have drawn pumpkin patterns for my class, I didn't think it would be too difficult to draw a something on a canvas for me to paint.

I surfed ebay for inspiration.

I love anything that has a sort of Dutch Master feel .

I am wild about dark moody backgrounds with flowers or fruit. That is what I was going for.

I didn't want to copy the work that I found on ebay

but I used it for a springboard toward creating my own.

I did some thrift store shopping a few weeks ago and found a framed canvas for three dollars.

The black frame would be perfect with a pumpkin so I painted over it.

I got an inexpensive set of acrylic paints at Hobby Lobby.

I am a novice in the paint department and didn't want to spend a lot for a set of oils.

This set was $14.99.

Well worth it for an experiment.

I used black and two browns to get a murky effect.

After that dried for several hours, I sketched an outline with some chalk.

I painted the pumpkin, stem and curlicues and let that dry.

Finally, I went in with the highlights and leaves.

Even though this is a naive, primitive painting. The highlights are important. I checked out the pumpkin paintings on ebay again to get the details as realistic as I could.

I will enjoy displaying this somewhere with my collection of fall stuff.