2 Easy Halloween Watercolor Painting Ideas 🎃 | Spooky Autumn Landscapes for Beginners, by Painted Under Starlight on YouTube. 16 min 16 s.
- Video length
- 16 min 16 s
- Time to do it
- 1 hour
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 8
What you need
Steps
Tape your paper to a flat board so it stays flat while wet. Sketch the scene lightly with a pencil, or trace one of the two line drawings if you printed them.
For the sunset painting, wet the whole sky area with clean water. Drop in orange, red and purple and let them bleed into each other without brushing too much.
While the sky is still damp, press a tissue to lift soft clouds. Let the paper dry completely before moving on.
Paint the ground in darker washes of brown, grey and purple, keeping the area near the horizon lighter so the scene feels deep.
For the graveyard painting, leave a dry circle for the moon. Wet the rest of the sky and paint deep blue, purple and black around it.
Once the background is bone dry, paint the silhouettes in black or very dark purple with a small round brush. Add the scarecrow, trees, gravestones and bats.
Build depth by keeping distant trees small and pale, and making foreground shapes larger and darker. Add thin grass strokes with the brush tip.
Let everything dry, then peel the tape off slowly at a low angle so the paper edge does not tear.
Tips and common mistakes
Wait until a wash is fully dry before adding black shapes, or the dark paint will bleed into the sky.
Test your colour mixes on a scrap of the same paper first, since watercolor dries lighter than it looks wet.
Keep washes thin and let layers build up, because thick paint cracks and looks muddy.
If you have no black, mix a dark purple from blue and red instead.
Questions
Do I need special watercolor paper?
Yes, use cold press paper of at least 140 lb or 300 gsm. Thin printer paper buckles and the washes pool badly.
How long does each painting take?
Plan around 30 minutes per scene, including drying time. The graveyard sky is faster because the moon is left as bare paper.
Can I paint these without drawing skills?
You can. Trace the free line drawings or keep the shapes simple, since silhouettes only need a rough outline.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
