Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and more Pumpkins

Pumpkins are one of the joys of Fall.  They are carved for Halloween, decorations for the inside and outside of houses, made into pie, muffins, breads, syrups in coffees, chais, and much more!  This time of year I join in on almost of the things above (except the coffee, I don't like any type of coffee).  The other activity I love doing is painting pumpkins!  Pumpkins are one of the pictures that I can paint and use so many shades of orange.

Majority of my colors I mix.  This can sometimes be challenging because if I stop painting before the whole picture is done, or if I run out of one of the colors that I mixed before I am done with a certain area, I will more than likely not mix the exact color again.  Even though that can be a challenge, I also find it fun and interesting at the same time.  It keeps me on my toes.  Last night I was mixing some oranges for this pumpkin picture and I accidentally added too much black to my color and the it turned more of a burnt orange/brown.  Even though it wasn't turning out the way I wanted, I still continued to paint with it to see how it would come out.  In the picture below it is the large center pumpkin behind  the 2 small ones that are going to become white pumpkins.

 Before

 After
I also painted the background a light blue but I am not quite sure about how I like it yet.  My boss Michele always tells me that if I start to get stuck or am not sure on how something looks, to walk away and go back to it to look at it with a fresh eye.  That's what I decided to do last night with the background and the pumpkin.

Whenever I mix colors, they are in different sections like this, and then I keep adding to each or moving some of it to a new area and adding more color depending how I want it to look.

The only paints I have ever worked with are Acrylic paints.  One of the best things about Acrylic paints are that you can always paint over them.  If I decide that I want the background of my pumpkin picture to be purple, I will have no problem painting over the blue.  You won't even be able to tell there is a different color underneath.  My favorite Acrylic paints to use are Utrecht's Artists' Colors.  

This is a picture of some pumpkins that I did last year, I tried adding squirrels (the first animal that I have ever painted) and changing the size, shape and direction of them.

This year I tried putting a witches hat next to one.

I am also trying to put some sunflowers behind some pumpkins, I haven't started in on this one too much but sketched out the outline.

Let me know what you think!  I will post more pictures of the pumpkins and the pumpkin and sunflowers when they are all done.  Have a good night!

xoxo Savannah