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Create something special for your Christmas tree or as a gift during the holidays by painting your own watercolour Christmas decoration on a slice of wood. It makes for a nice, rustic ornament and is a simple watercolour project for beginners. I spend most of my Christmas break eating, visiting with family and painting! I head over to my parent’s house and spend hours each day painting. Because I travel by plane for the visit, I can only bring a small amount of art supplies, which usually means watercolours.
You’ll need a few supplies for this project:
- Wood slices – I used 3” wide rounds that I ordered from Amazon
- Gesso
- Golden Absorbent Ground
- Watercolour paint – I used three colours: ultramarine blue, sap green and alizarin crimson hue
- A small round watercolour brush – I used a size 6 Princeton Heritage for most of the project plus a 10 for the background wash.
I won’t go into detail on how to prep the wood slices. Please check out my blog post on how to use the absorbent ground for all the details. Essentially, you need to do two layers of gesso, then two layers of absorbent ground before you can start with your watercolours.
Now let’s get to the fun part – painting! I painted two decorations. One with holly and one with mistletoe. If you aren’t confident with your painting skills, do a couple test paintings on paper before you move to the decoration.
I demonstrate how to paint the two designs on my YouTube channel.
Want to paint more watercolours? Check out my tutorial on how to paint pussy willows.
Get supplies
Pick up supplies for this project at your local art supply store or on Amazon:
US
- Wood slices
- Gesso
- Golden Absorbent Ground
- Watercolour paint
- Watercolour brushes
Canada
