As the weather gets colder and the holiday season begins, you may find yourself spending extra time indoors with more time off than usual. To beat the winter blues and brighten someone's day, try our eco-friendly pine cone card tutorial, featuring our Earth & Mineral Pigments!
Supplies:
- Earth & Mineral Pigments (we used Emerald Green, Ultramarine Blue, Venetian Red, Orange Ochre, and Natural Gold Mica)
- Paint binder of your choice (see Step 1)
- Pencils (for sketching)
- Paper (if you're using a watercolor or gouache binder, we recommend our Bamboo Watercolor & Mixed Media Paper)
- Paint brushes
Step 1: Mix a small amount of each Earth & Mineral Pigment color with the natural paint binder of choice to make enough paint for the design. We used our Natural Gouache Paint recipe for this tutorial, but you can also use our Natural Acrylic Medium, Natural Watercolor Paint, or Egg Tempera Paint.
Step 2: Lightly sketch out your pine cone design, complete with pine cones, pine needles, leaves, and berries. You can also skip this step and take the freeform painting route if you like.
Step 3: Mix up a brown shade for your pine cone painting. We started with Ultramarine Blue...
...Added some Venetian Red to the mix...
Step 4: ...and finally mixed in some Orange Ochre for the perfect warm-brown shade to create the underpainting for the pine cone. Add a small amount of water to your paint to keep the underpainting light.
Step 5: Paint in the leaves in your design with some Emerald Green.
Step 6: For the pine needles, add a bit of Orange Ochre to your Emerald Green paint for a slightly warmer green shade and paint away. You make want to use a thinner paint brush for this step to get more precise detail.
Step 7: To add details to the pine cone, paint small strokes over the underpainting you created earlier with your undiluted warm brown paint.
Step 8: Add even more Orange Ochre to your warm green shade to paint your additional pine needles.
Step 9: Add some bright berries to your design with Venetian Red paint.
Step 10: Paint in some outlines with your Natural Gold Mica paint wherever you feel like your design needs a little extra shine. We're loving the green-and-gold combo on the leaves!
Step 11 (optional): Add any additional details to your pine cone painting. We added some lines and texture to the design with natural ink, but you can finish your painting any way you like. Happy holidays!
Interested in more crafts featuring Natural Earth Paint products? Visit our Nature Crafts DIY page!
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