How To Paint Pinecones

You know, in October when I blogged 31 days in a row and painted 31 paint projects, I thought that creating a bunch of holiday paint projects would be simple. Easy. No sweat!

And I was oh-so wrong. Again.

I had good intentions though. I thought of a bunch of holiday paint themes and easy projects and listed them on my calendar. If you’re a list-maker like me, you know the false feeling of satisfaction you get by making a To-Do list. Like there’s some magical spell cast just by writing each task down and Poof! It’s done!

I even added them to my Google Calendar so every day I get these cute little reminders in my email to post these paint projects that I haven’t painted yet.

By now, we (yes, I include you in my dilemma, ok?) should’ve painted the following:

• Pottery Barn dropcloth runner
• Birch Trees
• Snowman Paper dolls      did those!
• Snowman Goblet Candleholder
• Snowman Coasters
• Birch trees
• Poinsettias on goblets
• Gingerbread Man Apron

And that’s just a partial list. Back on November 8 I had scheduled a Pinecone Tutorial. The one I’m posting today.

So here’s what I’m thinkin’ – I’m either 20 days behind schedule OR I have 20 more days than the calendar actually says.

I’m leaning toward the latter. What d’ya say? How’d you like an extra 20 days right about now? Are ya with me?

Welcome to my own private (twisted) world. It’s a fun place in here. We like to play with colors and make fun To-Do lists. And paint pinecones.

How To Paint A Simple Pinecone

1. Paint a pointed egg shape with Burnt Umber (dark brown)

 

2. With Café au Lait (tan/brown) start at top of cone, adding flat little nonpointed triangles.

I have no idea what shapes these things are. I asked the Hubs and he said a riblet. Riblet?!? Hello?

3. Fill in the entire pinecone with nonpointy triangles. At the bottom wash a layer of Café au Lait (tan) over the triangles.

 

4. Highlight triangles with a lighter shade of tan. Or mix a little gray or white in. Add the highlighting to the top center of each triangle.

There. A simple pinecone. But it’ll look a whole lot better if we -

Paint a Pine Branch

1. Paint the stem with light brown. Paint outer needles with Seaweed (dark green).

2. Load a liner brush with Seaweed (dk green) and then pick up some White on the tip of the brush.

3. Paint the inner needles (on an angle) with the green/white mixture, filling in the branch.

Looks better with the pine branch, doesn’t it?

Of course, if you don’t want to paint a dark brown pointy egg and then some light brown nonpointy triangles, you can always paint even simpler pinecones.

They just don’t look quite the same, do they. (Although a pine branch go along way to making them look better.)

But if you’re gonna paint a table that your brothers made for your mountain cabin, you’ll want to paint Pinecone #1.

On November 28. And imagine that it’s actually November 8 and pretend that you’re totally on top of your game.

Christmas is going to be great this year. Even if it winds up being in February.