Meet our festive friend, wrapped in cozy colors and holiday cheer! This Highland cow is ready to celebrate the season with lights, a snug scarf, and a touch of greenery. Who else loves to add a little whimsy to their holiday decor?
This tutorial will show you how to draw and paint a Christmas theme Highland cow. I demonstrate this on a 9 x 12 canvas, however, you can use any canvas size! There is also an optional traceable template you can use.
Enjoy and happy painting!
Materials List
Festive Highland Cow Acrylic Tutorial
A whimsical Christmas highland cow, enjoying the festive season. So much holiday spirit!
Materials
- 9 x 12 Canvas (or any size you want to paint on)
- Acrylic Paints (I use Liquitex BASICS)
- Paint Brushes
- Pencil
Colors
- Titanium White
- Mars Black
- Cadmium Red Deep Hue
- Primary Yellow
- Hooker's Green Hue
- Green Gray
- Primary Blue
- Raw Sienna
- Burnt Umber
Brushes
Color Palette
Note: if you don’t have “green gray”, you can make a green gray. Mix a “gray” by mixing 3 parts white to 1 part black. Then add 1 part green into it to tint the gray green. Green gray is only used in the background. Alternatively, you can just paint the background gray!
Directions At Glance
Traceable
Optional! You can hand draw this or use the traceable to transfer to the canvas!
Video
Coming soon!
Step By Step Directions
1. Paint background
Load your paint palette with the two colors: “green gray” and “titanium white”. Use a 3/4 wash brush. Double load it into both the white and the green. Paint angle paint strokes to fill the canvas
The green gray and white create a pretty color variation! Just fill the canvas it this technique. Try not to “over blend” the two colors.
2. Draw Highland Cow
Start by drawing the cow’s snout. This is sort of a “bow” shape. Draw two ovals on the left and right side. Then draw a curve for the bottom of the mouth.
Next, draw two curved lines on each side of the snout in the middle area. Then draw a small arc line for the eye.
Draw both sides of the cow’s hair parts. The part on the left is much larger and covers almost half of its face. The edging is pointed and the top goes in a curved direction to form the top of its head. The right side part is smaller but still has a curved top and pointed edging.
Draw the horns next. Note: I change the style of these horns later when they are painted in. So you can draw them like they will be in the finished results or draw them like this if you prefer! These horns are larger/ wider on the bottom and then go thinner and almost pointed on the end.
Draw the two ears that go below the horns. You can draw these “sketch line”. They are basically two curves with pointed edging. Then draw a basic knit hat with a fuzzy ball on top.
Draw the scarf. This is basically an oval or curved line that goes around the cow and covers its neck. Then draw two rectangular shapes for the pieces of scarf hanging down.
Then draw the back/ fur texture as pointed edging. Draw the right side of its front body.
Then draw lights around the horns. You can just draw the string for now and not draw the actual lights. Then draw a pine branch in the cow’s mouth! Draw a curved line that goes from one side of the mouth and comes out the other side. Then draw diagonal lines for basic pine needles.
3. Paint Snout
Use the #4 round brush and mars black to paint the nostrils. After painting the oval shapes, paint a little curve coming out to form a comma shape.
Next, mix equal parts “raw Sienna” and “titanium white” on your paint palette. You will create a light brown. Then paint the snout in with this light brown color.
Before this dries, blend “burnt umber” on the bottom of the snout so that it becomes dark on the bottom and light on the top. Then paint the mouth/ chin burnt umber mixed with your light brown color.
4. Paint Head, Hair & Ears
Rinse the brush. On your palette, mix 2 parts “raw Sienna” to 1 part “burnt umber”. You will create a medium brown color. Use the #4 round to paint the face are. Paint large strokes going in an upwards direction to fill the head area with this color. Paint over the eye and some parts of the hair but don’t paint over all of the hair area.
Rinse the brush. Use the light brown color (raw Sienna mixed with titanium white) to paint the hair. Use the round brush to paint both hair parts on each side. DO this by painting brush strokes that start on the top of the hair and go downwards. Create color variation in the hair strands by adding little bits of white to the hair and let it blend with the light brown. Paint the ears as well!
When you are painting the hair strands, try releasing the pressure of the brush as you stroke downwards so your brush stroke goes to a point. You can also add a little bit of dark brown into some of the strands.
Rinse the brush. Then add a small amount of “mars black” to the brush. Paint more hair strands. These will show up dark against the lighter color. Do just a few darker strands! If it is blending or mixing too much with the color below, let that dry and come back to this step.
5. Paint Body
Use the same color as the head (raw Sienna mixed with burnt umber). Paint the body area. At first paint this with more “expressive” paint strokes to fill in the area around the scarf.
Then, before this dries, add “titanium white” to your brush. Paint wavy hair lines on this area of the cow. This will create wavy hair texture over your first layer of color. The white will blend with the light brown layer below. If preferred, you could also double load your brush in white and raw Sienna and then paint wavy lines going in a vertical direction.
6. Paint Horns & Eye
Use titanium white to paint the cows horns. This is where I change the shape of the horn to be more curved and not an “s” shape.
Paint both of the horns white. Then, mix a tiny bit of black with white to make a dark gray. Paint the bottom of the horns with this dark gray and blend it into the rest of the horn. This will allow the top of the horn to be light and bottom to be dark and shadowy.
Also, paint a black curve for the eye!
7. Paint Scarf
Load the color “cadmium red deep” on your paint palette. Use the #4 round brush to paint the scarf. Start with the part that is wrapped around the neck.
Paint in a curved direction. Then paint the parts of the scarf hanging down. Paint those in a more vertical direction.
Paint the second piece that is folded under. This one is more of a dark shadowy color. Mix a little bit of black into red to make that darker color.
Mix titanium white with the red to create a lighter read color. Then blend that into the scarf to create highlights. Do this on the piece on the right that is folded on top. Make sure to overlap that piece. Then light red marks that blend with the curved part of the scarf that wraps around the neck.
8. Paint Hat
Paint the hat with the same red you used for the scarf. Paint the bottom edging part solid red. Then add a little white to the top part so that it stands out.
Use light red to paint the fuzzy ball piece. Start in the center and paint diagonal paint strokes going outwards in a circular direction. Each of your paint strokes start in the center and then stroke outwards! We will add another layer on this later for more detail!
9. Detail Hat & Scarf
Use titanium white and the #4 round brush to paint “frill” on the end of the scarf.
Optional: add black lines on the frill too! Then paint detail on the hat. First use the #4 round brush and “mars blacK” to outline the bottom part of the hat and paint little lines going upwards in a curved direction. This makes the vertical sweater knit texture.
Next, make the zig-zag sweater knit texture! To do this, use your #4 round brush to paint little diagonal paint strokes that make a zig-zag formation in rows and columns. Leave a little gap between the angle marks. To create “color variation” in each of the marks, double load your brush in both red and white!
Then add another layer of white on the top “fuzzy ball” area! To do this, load your #4 round brush in titanium white. Paint angle paint strokes going in a circular direction and stroke outwards. This will add a brighter layer over the first layer you did for the “fuzzy ball”. Then, (optional) paint a few black lines on there.
10. More hair/ darker strands
Use the color “burnt umber” (which is the darker brown) and the #4 round brush to paint darker hair strokes on the cow.
11. Paint Pine Branch
Use the 3/8″ angle brush for this step! Start by painting a dark stick line that looks like it is going in the cow’s mouth. I mixed black and brown together to make this dark color. Then load the brush into “hooker’s green hue”. Use the end of the brush to paint diagonal paint srtokes going outwards starting at the end of the branch and working your way to the left. .
Fill the branch with pine needles. Then load a small amount of “titanium white” onto your brush. Paint a layer of pine needles with this white that goes over the green. This will create a highlighter layer for your pine branch and help it to stand out better.
12. Paint lights
Use the #4 round brush and “mars black” to paint string cord that wraps around the cow’s horns. Be sure to pick the brush up where the cord goes behind the horns and paint over the horns where it goes over.
Then use “titanium white” to paint each of the light bulbs. You’ll need to wait for that white to dry before painting color over them!
After the white dries, use “primary yellow”, “primary blue”, “cadmium red deep” and “hooker’s green hue” to paint the lights!
You’ll need to wait for the lights to dry before painting the highlights and sockets on them!
13. Paint berries
Use the #4 round brush and “cadmium red deep” to paint the circles for the berries on the pine branches.
Then, before this dries, paint a white curve on the top of each of the berries. This will highlight them.
14. Paint snow
Use a #4 round brush to paint white dots all over the sky area for snow falling.
15. Paint Light Sockets and add knit detail on scarf
For the light sockets, mix a gray on your paint palette (mix black and white). Then paint a little trapezoid shape on the bottom of each of the lights.
Then repeat the same sweater texture technique on the scarf (using the round brush and painting angle zig-zag strokes). Alternatively you can do a pattern on the scarf such as plaid or stripes!
16. Paint highlights on lights (after they dry)
Use the #4 round brush and titanium white to paint a little dot and then a curved line on the left (or right) side of each of the bulbs!
This highlight really adds to the shiny effect of the lights!
Finished!
