Painting Pumpkins
Painting Pumpkins for Your Fall Festivals
Painting pumpkins is a fun way to get ready for Halloween and the fall festivals. You can decorate your pumpkin without making a mess, and if you're good enough at it, you could make some profit, selling them at a roadside stand or craft fair.
The type of pumpkin that you want for painting should be sound and firm, without any blemishes or gashes in the skin. The size of pumpkin that you use depends on your personal preferences, but usually the big ones are a lot of work. Unless you plan to sell your skills at painting pumpkins at a fall fair, a huge pumpkin is not very practical. If you do want to attend shows with the idea of selling your work though, the big pumpkin can be a great attention-getter. Paint a lot of little ones to sell, though, because they're “cuter” and people tend to flock to them.
The next step in painting pumpkins is preparing them. Do not get them all wet – just use a baby wipe to clean them off. You can also use a paper towel wetted with alcohol. Avoid the very bottom, and the stem. Then take a dry cloth and wipe the pumpkin thoroughly. Make sure it's dry before you start drawing or painting.
Most pumpkin artists use acrylic paints on their pumpkins. The paint is cheap, and it holds up well. You can apply the paint with a good brush or a cheap brush or even q-tips! Paintbrushes clean easily after the use of acrylic paints, though, so you might have better luck with a nice brush, and just clean it thoroughly between colors and when you're finished. For adding expression lines or eyelashes, use a black permanent magic marker – let the paint dry before you do that part.
You can paint any way you want to, but people who make money painting pumpkins usually paint little faces – eyes that are as close to the same size as you can make them, a small nose, and lips for the mouth.
The eyes can be shaped like ovals, and the whole inside of the eye should be painted white. Once that dries, you can paint the pupils with black. Add black lines above and below the eyes, and add eye-shadow along the top of the eye. Then, after that dries, paint black lashes, or use your marker for them.
For painting pumpkins' lips, make a line with black first, like a little smile. Or a frown, if your pumpkin will be in a sad mood. Add two pink or red humps above the line, to form the lips, and one longer hump on the bottom, for the lower lip.
Then, you can add some leaves, flowers or wavy lines, which will frame your pumpkin's face. Flowers can be made with dots of one color and a yellow dot in the center. You can add green leaves and stems too, if you like. Add dots on the leaves, just to make them stand out more.
The last step in painting pumpkins is a white dot in the eye, to highlight it. This gives the pumpkin's eye a lifelike look, and helps give it more personality.