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I love summertime because it’s berry season! I love strawberries so much and they’re fun to paint too. I’ll show you how to paint an acrylic strawberry in a sketchbook.
Strawberries are a simple subject to paint because they’re kind of an oblong ball-ish shape on one end, that tapers to a rounded point on the other end. Just think of it as a larger round ball connected to a smaller round ball with a tapered tube.
Watch me demonstrate how to paint a strawberry on my YouTube channel.
Begin your painting by adding a background and a table colour. I’ve used a shade of light blue for the background.
Start your strawberry with a red layer. Darken the shadow area and add white to the area that would have the highlight. Acrylics generally need layering so don’t be afraid to do multiple layers to get the overall shape of the strawberry.
Once you’re happy with the shape and form of the strawberry itself, add the seeds. The seeds themselves tend to be a dark yellow. Add a darker red below the seed, and a lighter red above the seed, to imply that the seeds are not sitting on top of the strawberry but slightly embedded.

Now add the green stem. Start with a single mid-tone of green, then add darker shadows and highlights to show the shape of the leaves of the stem. While a strawberry has a star-shaped leaf for its stem, you don’t necessarily see all of it from the perspective of the painting. Generally, you’ll paint a handful of triangles, some overlapping. Add a little darker red where the stem’s leaves meet the strawberry to imply a shadow.
Now, add a shadow under your strawberry where it sits on the table. Your shadow will be darkest right underneath the strawberry.
You’re done! You’ve painted a single strawberry. Now, you have the basis to paint strawberries from other angles or even a few strawberries together.
Get your own
Pick up some supplies at your local art shop or on Amazon:
US
- Titanium white acrylic paint
- Cadmium-free yellow medium acrylic paint
- Cadmium red medium acrylic paint
- Quinacridone red acrylic paint
- Ultramarine blue acrylic paint
- Phthalo blue (green shade) acrylic paint
- Chromium oxide green acrylic paint
- Princeton Aspen paintbrush flat size 4
- Ohuhu mixed media sketchbook
Canada
- Titanium white acrylic paint
- Cadmium yellow medium acrylic paint
- Cadmium-free red medium acrylic paint
- Quinacridone red acrylic paint
- Ultramarine blue acrylic paint
- Phthalo blue (green shade) acrylic paint
- Chromium oxide green acrylic paint
- Princeton Aspen paintbrush flat size 4
- Princeton Aspen paintbrush round size 2/0
- Ohuhu mixed media sketchbook