The most ordinary and friendly tree can take on a frightening attitude around Halloween. Smooth branches and little twigs become arms and fingers groping for you, catching your hair, as you pass under them. There is no better way to show this in a painting than by diffusing a spot of black paint by blowing air onto it through a straw. Because the lines you blow are so random and as thin as cobwebs, the finished art work, might give you, and your audience chills down your spine.
Steps
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Prepare your work space and paper. Cover a table with newspapers or plastic. Tear a piece of paper from a pad of #140 weight watercolor paper. Find an old shirt to wear as a smock over your clothes. Set out a drinking straw, a pencil, a ragged piece of natural sponge, a two inch square of cardboard, a fine line Sharpie or other black marker, an assortment of paint brushes and a set of watercolors.
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Squeeze out half an inch of black watercolor paint into a cup or small container. To get the black paint the right consistency to scatter when blown through a straw, watercolor in a tube works best. Very carefully, mix three caps of water from a water bottle with the paint so it resembles the consistency of milk. Test it on a piece of scrap paper to see that it isn't diluted too much and set it aside.Advertisement
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Wet the pads of color in your paint box.
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Place paper in front of you in either a horizontal or vertical orientation. Using pencil, divide the paper into unequal and approximate thirds. Draw the tree trunk and main branches. Add a horizon line.
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Paint the background first. Keeping scenery in mind, paint on your paper directly, creating a band for the ground, one for the distant mountains or prairie and the sky. Do this only once getting plenty of color onto the paper. Let it dry.
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Paint the trunk and the main branches of the tree. Using the cup of black and a large, round, pointed brush, make a tree. Work one branch at a time. On one branch, add more black paint and complete it.
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Blow through a straw to disperse the black paint. Think about these as smaller, ever diminishing in size new branches and twigs. Repeat on the next branch. Add more spots of black paint as needed to give you a fine array of branches. Turn your paper to go in many directions. Continue until you are satisfied with the tree.
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Make a pine tree using a credit card or a piece of cardboard. Use it as a stamping device. Touch an edge into a puddle of black paint and stamp a line of branches with it.
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9Use a piece of sponge to make some dead foliage on a branch or two. Wet the sponge, wring it out and touch it to a puddle of black paint. Stamp with it, creating some dead leaf clusters on some of the branches.
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Paint a crow in flight in black paint. Use a small, pointed brush for this. Paint an owl on a branch. Add the silhouette of a scarecrow.
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11Make fence posts with a small brush. They are just short upright strokes of black. Connect them, with lines to resemble wire, with a fine line Sharpie.
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Work on the foreground. Upgrade the foreground with weeds by making bold, horizontal, strokes of brown watercolor and scratching vertical lines into the wet wash with the point of a paper clip (unfolded) or the edge of a plastic credit card.
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When your work is finished, step back and admire it. You will see what a frightening tree and scene you’ve made. Hang it up to give your room Halloween ambiance.Advertisement
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Tips
- Acrylic black paint is a lot cheaper for a group and remains intensely black even when diluted with water to the proper consistency for blowing through a straw.Thanks
- It might be helpful to practice the technique of getting the paint to go where you want it as you blow through the straw. Just use scrap paper and try it first to gain confidence.Thanks
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Warnings
- Both black watercolor and acrylic are staining, so if it gets on the floor, wipe it up right away. Try not to get it on your clothing. Hands will come clean if washed with soap immediately when the job is completed.Thanks
- Carefully wash brushes to remove every trace of black paint from them. Use soap and cool water and allow to dry horizontally, on a paper towel.Thanks
- Styrofoam or light plastic cups are prone to tipping, so try to find a more substantial vessel for the black paint. Small, plastic yogurt cups are good. Just don't use anything that will later be used for drinking.Thanks
- Warn people to never suck paint inward. If you do, spit and rinse immediately. While it is non-toxic, it isn’t intended to be put in your mouth.Thanks
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