Paint a fir tree as the basis of your Christmas tree painting.
Fir trees are coniferous evergreens with blueish-green needles which are synonymous with Christmas trees. The Douglas fir is a common Christmas tree that is native to western North America and eastern Asia. For a festive holiday, paint a Christmas fir tree in acrylics. It can decorate your home during Christmas or become a gift for a loved one.
Instructions
1. Draw the vertical trunk of your fir tree on your prepared canvas with a pencil. A prepared canvas is a ready-to-use canvas for painting with acrylics and oils. It comes in any size and has one layer of gesso primer on it. Sketching your trunk will help in painting it later. It should be wider at the bottom and thinner at the top.
2. Add some branches stemming out of either side of the trunk. Keep it looking natural by creating random branches. Draw a horizontal line at the bottom of your tree so it looks like it is standing on something, rather than floating in the air.
3. Squeeze walnut-sized portions of brown, dark green and light green acrylic paint onto your palette. Acrylic paint dries quickly so you should just squeeze out what you need as you go along.
4. Dip your bristle paintbrush into the brown paint. Color in the fir trunk you drew. Paint the large branches in brown as well. Use the round paintbrush in brown paint for thinner branches. Wash the round paintbrush in soapy water. Let is dry.
5. Dip the fan paintbrush into the dark green paint. Gently press the brush over the branch areas of your fir tree to paint the foliage. The entire tree should have an overall triangle shape, so paint the foliage wider at the bottom of the tree. Remember to leave some of the tree trunk at the bottom free of foliage.
6. Dip your cleaned round paintbrush into the light green paint. Add small patches all over the tree to create highlights on the needles. You can add some small diagonal strokes with this brush. Be sure to maintain the overall triangle shape of the fir tree. Let your painting dry for about one hour and wash all your brushes.
7. Squeeze out yellow and red acrylic paint onto your palette. Dip your fine paintbrush into the yellow. Paint a yellow star at the top of your tree. Rinse the brush in soapy water. Dip the brush into red and paint red balls all over the tree. These are the decorations for your Christmas tree. Wash all your brushes.
