Graphic Sugar Skull Painting

Confession: I'm a girly-girl, but for some reason I'm obsessed with skulls.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to draw and paint a pretty, sugar skull, just in time for Halloween.

Enjoy.

What you will need:

Pencil
Eraser
Ruler
Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Paint Brushes

Measure out the half-way points of the length and width of your canvas
Draw a line down and a line across.

Lightly draw an egg shape, making sure that it is centered on the canvas.

I left about an inch above the top of the skull, and 2 inches below.

The eyes are circles which are centered the the horizontal lines in the egg shape drawn earlier.

The nose is an upside down heart. The top of it should be past the bottoms of the eye sockets.

From the horizontal guide draw slanted lines going in towards the skull.

From the horizontal guide, draw a slanted line down and into the face.

From the bottom of each of the cheekbone lines, draw horizontal lines. They should line up with the center of the eye sockets.

Continue with short lines which are slightly slanted inwards.

Connect the two points with a slightly curved line. You want your skull to smile!

Add 5 marks on the line as guides for the teeth.

The teeth are arches on either side of the line. The front two teeth are the biggest and get smaller towards the end.

From a little bit past the bottom point of the cheekbones, draw short slanted lines inwards.

Draw short lines slanting away from the face.

Draw long slanted lines down and inwards.

Draw a straight line across to join the lines.

Jaw completed!

Returning to the top of the cheek bones, draw slanted lines away from the face.

Connected the two points of the temple by following your sketch from earlier of the top of the egg/skull.

Skull outline completed!

Draw arches around the circles of the eye sockets.

Now they look like flowers. Delightful.

Add rows of dots between the eyes, on the cheek bones, and upper jaw.

The chin features half a flower with dots along the sides.

Follow the corresponding images for a detailed guide.

In the center of the forehead, draw an upside down tear. Draw the arches as directed.

Draw lines coming out of the jeweled piece. Add dots for interest.

Draw pears and circles below the line of the headpiece to create the effect of dangling jewels.

Add a flower to the center jewel.

Boom. Sketch completed!

Painting your skull is as easy as carefully tracing over the pencil with some paint.

Do not be afraid to paint details that were not in your sketch, or to not paint details that were.

After the paint is dry, erase the pencil marks.

Now that it is all painted and dry, you can hang that bad boy up and admire it while it scares your mother.

Thank you for stopping by!