No More Orange Pumpkin

I bought this faux pumpkin several years ago.  I really love the unusual shape but I was very tired of the bright orange color.  I have been debating for awhile what to do to change the look of this gourd.

I finally chose these three chalk paint colors plus brown and orange acrylic paint.

The first thing that I did was to give the pumpkin a light coat of Serene Blue leaving some of the orange peeking through the blue.

 

Next,  I used the brightest green, Refreshing, on the ridges of the pumpkin,  leaving the valleys with the blue showing.  The contrast is a bit hard to see on camera.  But it does show well in person.

The last coat of paint I used,  just on the center of the ridges, was the gray green, Retro.  I love the mix of colors and shading.

When the body of the pumpkin was dry I lightly painted the stem brown and added thinned down orange paint flicked on with a paint brush.

 

Now this looks like a very artistic pumpkin.  The chalk paint leaves a soft velvety finish.

The last thing I did was to hot glue a couple of brown leaves to the top.  Somewhere along the way, going in and out of storage every year, this pumpkin lost the original leaf.

I actually have 2 of these pumpkins.  Now I need to decide if I want to change the color on that one, too.

This pumpkin can stay out for the entire season until it is time for Christmas decor. It no longer looks so much like Halloween.

Happy Crafting!

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Series of Painted Pumpkins

I sketched out 3 different views of pumpkins

For the background I chose to paint the canvases with a mix of black and white paint to create a variegated gray then added a few blue highlights.  This is my only my second attempt with painting with mostly a palette knife.  I think I like the way the texture appears different than when using just a brush.

I also chose to paint each pumpkin a different color.  One pink, one blue and one salmon.

For this pink pumpkin I mix pink and white.  Each different pumpkin color was mixed with white.

Added a brown stem.

And green vine and leaf.

The very last thing I did was to highlight the vines and stems with a little liquid gold.  Doesn't really show up in the pictures but looks nice when it catches the light.

I am thinking of mounting these vertically on a piece of burlap ribbon and hanging them on the front door for Fall.

This was a fun project using canvas panels instead of stretched canvases.  I was hoping to keep them light enough in weight to hang on my wreath holder.

I ended up using hot glue to glue theses pumpkins to a lace and burlap ribbon to display them.

Happy Painting!