Halloween Painted Pumpkin Characters: Harry Potter, Grinch and More..

Halloween’s almost here :-)

Say goodbye to messy, complicated pumpkin carving…Just paint a few of your favorite characters to decorate your home. You can use real or fake ones (the real ones stay for about 2 months, fake ones forever).

1. Pumpkins (fake or real)
2. Acrylic paints (based on the character you choose to paint)
3. Black Sharpie
4. Pencil and brushes

For Harry Potter and Hedwig:

1. I purchased 2 gourds from Trader Joe’s for 50 cents and decided to use those for Hedwig and Harry. I painted one white and the other a flesh color (it turned out more grey than flesh color but I went with it; feel free to mix your own flesh color with white and some orange).
2. After drying, I used a black sharpie to draw in Harry’s features on the flesh colored gourd (use a google image as reference).
3. Hedwig is the easiest to draw. On the white gourd, draw two almond shaped eyes with 2 triangles in the middle. Draw out a triangle shaped beak, trace out an oval pattern with dots around the eyes and beak and you’re done.   
4. Paint the space around the eye ball with a yellow or metallic gold. Use the sharpie to draw tiny dots along the body for feathers. The gourd’s spots and rough edges helped add some dimension as well.
5. Color in Harry’s features (remember his green eyes) and his scarf using red / gold paint (don’t forget his scar). Let everything dry.

For the Grinch

1. Paint your pumpkin white or a light base color. Once dry, pencil in the details of your character. I started with the Grinch for my first pumpkin and sketched the details from a google image.
2. Paint the pumpkin a lime green and let dry. You might have to use 2 coats for an even look.
3. Re-trace the pencil lines over the green. Use the black sharpie to draw over the pencil lines.
4. Paint the eyes yellow with red eye balls and let dry.
5. 
   

For Angry Birds

1. Paint your pumpkin a light base color (I accidentally used the lime green but since the bird I chose is black, I just painted over the green… Phew).
2. Draw out the details of the bird with a pencil or sharpie (use a google image as reference).
3. Color all the different features in (as in the image) with the right acrylic paints and let dry (you will use white, grey, light and dark orange and black).
4. Outline the features with the black sharpie.