While carving pumpkins has been a long standing Halloween tradition, painting and decorating pumpkins is now becoming a popular alternative. Painting and decorating Halloween pumpkins is fun and often times easier than carving, and the finished product looks better, too. Another benefit to painting and decorating Halloween pumpkins is that they can be done earlier in the season than carved pumpkins, because intact pumpkins do not rot quickly like carved ones do. If you would like to paint and decorate your Halloween pumpkin to look like Jack Skellington character from The Nightmare Before Christmas movie, just follow these super easy directions!
Supplies you will need – Painting and decorating your Halloween pumpkin to look like the Jack Skellington character from The Nightmare Before Christmas movie is extremely simple. The only supplies you will need for this project is white acrylic paint (you may choose to use a more kid friendly variety of paint if there will be children working on this project), black construction paper, and a glue stick. And of course, your pumpkin!
Step one – You will probably want to complete the first step of painting your Jack Skellington pumpkin by adequately covering the work space you will be using to paint on. Whether you will be painting on the floor, or at the table, it’s best to cover the surface with a plastic tablecloth so that paint will not seep through to the surface below. Plastic tablecloths can be found cheap at your local dollar store. The first step in completing your Jack Skellington pumpkin is simply to paint your entire pumpkin white. Either remove the stem, or leave it unpainted. Allow your pumpkin to dry completely before moving on to the next step.
Step two – The next step in decorating your Jack Skellington pumpkin is to simply cut out the eye shapes that you will need for Jack’s eyes out of black construction paper. Look at the attached photo for a few minutes, and then try drawing accurate shapes for Jack Skellington’s eyes. To make sure they are identically sized, cut one first, then flip it over and trace it on the black construction paper. Cut this out and you should have two identically shaped eyes. Simply glue these in place onto your Jack Skellington pumpkin face with your glue stick.
Step three – Now that you have the eyes finished, cut a simple, but appropriately sized triangle out of the black construction paper, and affix this to the pumpkin face with your glue stick.
Step four – Next, you will need to cut a thin smile shape from the black construction paper, and glue this in place, as well.
Step five – Finally, just cut four thin, equally sized strips from the black construction paper and glue these into place at even intervals along Jack Skellington’s mouth.
Your finished Jack Skellington Halloween pumpkin will look great among the rest of your Halloween décor, and is sure to get more than a few compliments from trick-or-treaters and their parents!
