Best 3 Options for a Beginner-Friendly Christmas Gnome Painting Tutorial

Learn to Paint a Festive Gnome with Help from These YouTube Tutorials

Do you know what you need? A cute Christmas gnome painting tutorial! Why? Well, because they’re adorable, super customizable, and they can teach you things like how to paint beards, give depth to fabric, and add fine details on their wonky little hats.

In this post, I’ll provide you with some amazing YouTube recommendations. I’ll give you a brief summary of what the tutorial includes and why giving it a try could be really helpful for future paintings. Let’s get right into it!

Best DIY Holiday Gnome Painting for Serious Practice

In “Gnome for the Holidays Acrylic Paint Tutorial” by Jenny Sikma, she shows you how to paint not one gnome but five of them! It’s the perfect step-by-step for repetitive practice. I have no doubt that you’ll be a pro at painting gnomes by the time you’re through with this one.

But, just because this one takes a bit more time than the others I’ve included doesn’t mean that it’s harder. In fact, it’s quite easy because it uses all of the same basic shapes throughout and it also uses a limited color palette with minimal color mixing.

This Christmas gnome painting tutorial teaches you a few techniques that will be really useful for future paintings.

You’ll get to try your hand at:

• Painting on a black canvas
• Painting fine details (like on the gnome’s hats)
• Painting fabric
• Creating dimension in the beards by using colors instead of just grey or black
• An interesting way to paint a glowing moon
• Practice splattering paint with a toothbrush to make snowflakes (practice this technique on a piece of scrap paper first)

I do want to point out a few things that may trip you up and, also, give you a few suggestions on things you may be wondering about. Of course, if I don’t mention something you have questions about, feel free to leave me a comment below and I’ll try my very best to help you out.

• When she mentions using a detail brush, I’m pretty sure she’s talking specifically about a script brush
• If you’re going to use a hairdryer to quickly dry your painting between layers make sure to use the lowest heat setting possible and keep it moving (trust me, you do not want to burn the paint)
• If you want a brighter moon just add a bit more white paint to the center of the moonglow
• When she’s talking about using a sort of dry brush technique to create folds on the hats, it’s really just a matter of using a small amount of paint, with a very light touch, and allowing the brush to gently lift away from the canvas without forcing it. It’s more of a sweep of color
• You can use a piece of chalk or a watercolor pencil to sketch in the string of Christmas lights. You can use different colors of chalk/pencil to plan out where you want the colored lights to go

Don’t forget, you can always add your own personal touches to any of these tutorials. They are fully customizable. The easiest way to add a unique spin would be in the designs on the hats, and color choices. Don’t be afraid to make it your own!

Quick and Easy Christmas Gnome Step-by-Step for a Long Narrow Canvas or Wooden Board

Next on our list we’ve got “How to Paint a Christmas Gnome” by Hometalk. In this video tutorial, you’ll learn to paint a gnome on a long plank of wood but this would also work on any canvas, especially those long narrow canvases that you can easily find just about anywhere art supplies are sold.

This is a very short step-by-step tutorial that uses really basic shapes, expressive brush strokes (perfection is not recommended for this one, woohoo!), and a limited amount of shadow work. It’s a great painting tutorial for brand new beginners and I think even kids would enjoy painting this one.

Some of the techniques you’ll be practicing with this one are:

• Loose expressive painting
• Painting fabric
• Wet into wet blending technique (for shadows)
• Working on a large surface

In addition, here is some other useful info to help you have an even easier time of it:

• If you’re going to use a wooden plank, I would suggest sealing and lightly sanding it first so that your paint doesn’t soak into the grain of the wood
• At the beginning of the video, she adds a bit of skin tone on either side of the nose, under the hat, but later you’ll see that she’s painted over that. I would recommend skipping that step and filling in the small section with black to make a shadow under the hat. It will help make the hat look extra droopy
• If you don’t have any flesh-toned paint, you can make your own by mixing a bit of red or pink with yellow, then mix with lots of white. If you find the skin tone too bright, you can add a dot of purple to tone it down a bit (to learn more read my article about the color wheel and how it can help to determine which paints will dull down when mixed together)

Because this video is so short and everything is pretty basic, get those creative juices flowing and experiment with color, designs on the hat, maybe add some snowflakes in the background, make his beard look wild and crazy, or whatever your heart desires.

A Santa Gnome Acrylic Painting Tutorial

So, let me start by saying that this Christmas gnome painting tutorial has no vocal instruction. Instead, you can see what she’s painting, and, every once in a while, there will be an instructional text overlay to help guide you.

Now, normally, I wouldn’t recommend this type of video to someone who is a true blue beginner but this DIY festive gnome painting, “Whimsical Santa Claus Acrylic Painting Tutorial”, is just so adorable and I really like Studio Silver Creek’s style.

To make this a bit more user-friendly for beginners, you should follow these steps:

• Mute the video
• Click on settings (which looks like a little cog wheel in the lower right-hand corner)
• Go to playback speed and slow it down

Some of the skills you’ll be practicing in this painting tutorial are:

• Painting long thin lines
• Painting fabric
• Using background color and paint transparency to help you to create easy shadows (In this case, she keeps a bit of the black background peeking through in places where she wants to add shadows. Then, she paints layers of red paint gradually and only adds extra layers where she wants that particular section to be more in the light. This will cause the red coat to go from vibrant red to a darker red to black)
• Using underpaintings to create depth in the beard and the white fur trim
• Another paint color mixture to create a skin tone for the nose
• Using orange paint to make the red more vibrant (you could also use yellow)
• Painting on black canvas
• Splattering paint for snowflakes (practice this on a piece of scrap paper first!)

There are only a few things I would suggest to add or to tweak a bit to make this gnome painting tutorial super easy:

• If you don’t have a stencil brush to paint the soft fluffy looking fur trim, you could also use a deer foot stippler paintbrush, a sea sponge, or even a crumpled up piece of paper towel
• If you don’t own a dotting tool to make the bigger snowflakes, just use the handle end of a small paintbrush
• If you don’t want to stress about the hands, you could always just leave them off and extend his arms until they meet his body (it will look like he has his hands behind his back)
• If you do decide to keep the hands, you might have fun painting them in a bright color so that he looks like he’s wearing mittens
• Consider adding a thin black line between the fur trim on the hat and the nose to create more depth and make his hat nice and floppy (FYI: Gnomes hate tight hats. #truestory)

This is such a great little Christmas gnome painting tutorial. I love the bright red coat against the dark black sky, with the falling snow. Since it’s a really short video tutorial, you should definitely give it a try.

DIY Holiday Gnome Painting Takeaway

Using a Christmas gnome painting tutorial to add a bit of playful whimsy to your holiday décor is sure to bring a smile to everyone’s face.

You can easily customize their quirky hats, add unexpected colors to their beard, and paint lots of curly cues, stripes, and polka dots in cheerful colors to make them as fun and playful as you like.

Painting a Christmas gnome really gives you that special feeling of going back to your childhood days, where snow days were a reason to celebrate and the belief in magic was strong. I hope you give one of these amazing tutorials a try and enjoy a moment of holiday cheer.

What Do You Think is the Most Important Part of a Christmas Gnome Painting, the Hat or the Nose?

More Articles to Help With Painting Gnomes:

• Black Canvas Painting Tips
• Painting Thin Hairs
• How to Mix Your Own Brown Paint Color for Beards
• Paint a Snowman Friend for Your Gnome
• How to Paint a Christmas Tree for Your Gnome

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