Fun Pumpkin Painting Idea: Acrylic Paint Pouring

Each year the kids love to paint pumpkins. I am always looking for a fun pumpkin painting idea because like to do something different every year. I remember one year melting about a hundred crayons on a pumpkin with my hairdryer. What a mess! Oh, and I killed the hairdryer.

This year I was thinking about how we could try to do a paint pouring on pumpkins. It’s so much fun and the kids love to do pourings, so we gave it a try. We started with a base coat of paint because I wasn’t sure the pouring would stick to the surface of the pumpkin because it is naturally so slick. Here’s how we did it.

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HOW TO DO THIS FUN PUMPKIN PAINTING IDEA

STEP ONE: PAINT PUMPKIN WITH BASE COAT

Here we did one coat of chalkboard paint painted on with a brush. We let this dry overnight.

STEP TWO: MIX PAINT

Next, we mixed our acrylic paint with water and Floetrol in separate cups for each color. I didn’t follow a specific ratio or perfect formula. I just squirted some paint in each cup and added just enough water to make the paint a liquid. Then, I poured some Floetrol in each cup. Again, enough to make it a liquid that will pour. Floetrol is what will keep your colors separate, without it you would end up with muddy brown. You can find Floetrol at Home Depot. I mixed each of these with a stirrer – plastic forks because that is what I had on hand.

STEP THREE: THE DIRTY POUR

We poured the colors we wanted to use into one cup, the dirty pour cup. For example, on my pumpkin I just used white and pink and red and I poured a little of each color into one cup.

Finally, we poured the paint from the dirty pour cup onto the pumpkin. This is the fun part. I just poured around one time in a circle and didn’t pour around the stem. The kids did multiple pourings and poured all over their pumpkins.

Let them dry for about two days. I know that sounds like a long time and it would probably depend on how much paint you used, but it took a long time for the paint that had pooled at the top by the stems to dry. Also, after a day, I moved them from the pool of paint they were sitting in so the bottom part would dry.

The possible color combinations and designs you could accomplish with this technique are limitless and wouldn’t it be fun to try? You could also do your base coat in another color. We just used the chalkboard paint because I already had it and my dinning room is black so I thought it would go nicely in there. I hope you try this fun pumpkin painting idea and I’d love to see the results if you do.