Would you like to save this?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
Learn how to paint a rustic Valentine’s Day wreath adorned with candy hearts. This painting has a simple light rustic wood background. We will be painting a grape vine style wreath with little leaves and berries attached to it.
You can add an optional quote to this and/or customize the little sayings on the candy hearts.
Enjoy and happy painting!
Materials Needed
Rustic Valentine's Day Wreath Painting Tutorial
Learn how to paint a rustic wreath in the shape of a heart adorned with cute candyheart treats.
Materials
- 11 x 14 Canvas
- White Chalk
- Ruler
Colors
- Titanium White
- Mars Black
- Burnt Sienna
- Burnt Umber
- Medium Magenta
- Hooker's Green Hue
- Unbleached Titanium
- Primary Yellow
- Turquoise Blue
Brushes
- 3/4 Flat
- #4 Round
Color Palette
Directions At A Glance
Video
Coming soon!
Step By Step Directions
1. Paint Background
Load your paint palette with the colors: unbleached titanium, titanium white and a small amount of burnt umber. Load your 3/4 wash brush into water and tap excess water out of the brush.
Load your brush in about equal amounts of beige and white and a tiny amount of brown. We are going to be doing full width paint strokes that go vertically from the top edge to the bottom edge of the canvas.
Paint up and down paint strokes and allow those three colors to blend on the canvas. You will get different variations of color and we want it to look “streaky”. Add water to your brush to help the color spread thin and blend. This background layer should be a thin layer of paint.
Continue to load your brush in white and beige and only use a little bit of the dark brown to blend into your color. Fill the entire canvas with this technique.
Wait for this to dry. Then use a ruler to paint vertical lines representing the wood paneling. I made my lines about 3″ apart, however, you can estimate this size and it doesn’t have to be exact. Use the #4 round brush and burnt umber to paint the lines.
I was able to paint 4 lines across my canvas. Let this dry before going to the next step.
2. Draw Heart With Chalk
Use a piece of chalk to draw a large heart to represent the shape of the wreath. Make it very large and leave a bit of room at the top for a ribbon.
3. Paint Vine Dark Layer
We will be painting small curved lines that intertwine with each other around the heart shape. This first layer will be very dark and we will be layering on lighter colors after this!
Use the #4 round brush. Mix equal parts “burnt umber” and “mars black” together. Slightly water it down to almost an “ink” consistency. Start anywhere on the wreath. Paint curved lines that cross and intertwine with each other and go along your chalk drawing.
These little branch lines can have the same consistency or they can start out thin (hold light pressure to make the line thin) then go thick and then end thin. It’s also okay to go outside the line that you drew.
Do this all the way around to form your heart shape. On the bottom, I had the vines cross each other to form an “x” but you don’t have to do this. You can just have them connect on the bottom point of the heart.
4. Add Lighter Layers To Vine
Next we will be adding lighter layers to our vine! Mix white with the “burnt umber” to create a light version of your brown. Then paint over your dark layer but don’t cover all of the black.
Next, mix a light golden brown on your palette by adding “primary yellow” to your palette. Mix the yellow with the brown (about equal amounts). Then add white to it to lighten it up. Paint another layer on your wreath with more twisty paint strokes but don’t cover all of your previous layers up.
Optional: add “burnt Sienna” to your palette. This is a reddish brown. Mix your burnt Sienna into your “golden brown” and paint more “twisty” paint strokes. This gives more depth and color variation with your brown wreath.
5. Paint Sticks Extending Out From Heart Shape
This next step we will be adding some “character” to our rustic wreath! Use the #4 round brush and your dark color (the black mixed with the burnt umber). Paint twig pieces that are extending outwards from the heart. These are the twig pieces that will host the little pink berries we will paint in the next step.
6. Paint Pink Berries & Little Green Leaves
Use your #4 round brush and “medium magenta” to paint little pink dots on the ends of all the branches you just painted. Alternatively, you can do this with red paint but I chose pink! Also, paint some pink dots along the main part of the wreath (not attached to branches that are sticking out).
Then rinse the brush. Mix hooker’s green hue with a small amount of “yellow” and “white”. Paint little oval shaped leaves throughout the wreath.
7. Paint Ribbon
Use the #4 round brush and the “medium magenta” to paint a ribbon. I made this ribbon thicker at the top edge of the canvas and thinner towards the bottom. Also, blend a little white into your pink to give it some “color variation”. I also painted this with paints strokes going up and down.
Then use the #4 round brush to paint the two loops for the bow.
Paint two tie pieces extending down from the bow.
I made these pieces long and extending down to almost the full height of the inner part of the wreath.
Then make the bow thicker by blending in white with the pink. Also, make an oval shape for the “knot” in the middle of the bow tie. Blending the white with the pink gives you all the pretty color variations in the bow!
8. Paint Candy Hearts (first layer)
Use titanium white to paint little white heart shapes throughout the wreath. I did four on one side and three on the other.
Mix your “pale colors” for the hearts next. I did a yellow heart, green, blue, purple and orange. For each of these colors you want to mix a bunch of white with the color. For example: mix 4 parts white to 1 part yellow to make a pale yellow.
For the green heart, I used “hooker’s green hue” and “titanium white”.
For the blue hearts, I used “turquoise blue” and “titanium white”.
For the purple heart, I mixed about equal amounts of the teal and magenta together then added white to it.
For the orange heart, I mixed “medium magenta” with “primary yellow” (about equal parts) and added white to it.
Let this first layer dry before going onto the next step.
9. Paint Longer Leave Twigs
Use the #4 round brush and your dark brown color (or black) to paint long, wavy branches that extend out from the wreath. These will be the branches that will hold our bigger green leaves.
Then use the #4 round brush and “hooker’s green hue” to paint rounded/ pointed green leaves. These are bigger than the smaller oval leaves we painted earlier.
After painting the first layer with green, you can go back and add a lighter green layer (mix white and green together). I did this on one side of each of the leaves – paint a small curve shape. This gives the leaves some “dimension”.
10. Paint Sides Of Candy Hearts
For the sides of the heart, you want to use the original color version or a darker version of the candy heart. Use the #4 round brush and paint the sides of each of the hearts. You want to pick a side on each of the hearts and paint a thick line that runs next to the heart.
For each of the hearts, the side that you paint may be different. Alternating the sides that you paint will give some variation in the hearts as well!
As for colors, the yellow hearts were painted with “orange” sides, the blue hearts were painted with “turquoise blue (not mixed with white) sides, the green hearts were painted with “green (not mixed with white), the purple hearts were painted with purple not mixed with white and the orange hearts were painted with a darker orange colors (mix a little green into the orange). Alternatively, you could mix any of the darker colors with a tiny amount of black.
11. Highlight Candy Hearts
Next, use titanium white and your round brush to highlight the hearts. Lightly paint white on some of the edges of the hearts. It could be any of the edges, just select which edge you want to highlight. Lightly outline the edge and then use your finger to lightly smudge it.
When you smudge the little outline, it helps to make it not so bright and gives the edges of the hearts just a little bit of brightness.
After that dries, go back and add some “curved line” highlights to the hearts. I did this to the upper left of each of the hearts. Just paint a tiny curved line with white (and you don’t have to smudge it).
I also painted clusters of little white dots throughout the wreath using the round brush and white.
12. Optional: add texture to wood background
This is optional! After I painted it, I decided it made the background a little too “busy”. I painted wood knots in the background to try to make the background wood texture look a little more rustic and detailed. I used “burnt umber” mixed with white and black (gray) to make a gray-brown. Then use the #4 round brush to paint little curved lines to create knots in the wood.
13. Paint Words On Hearts
You can do this with a POSCA paint pen (different colors) to make things easier! I didn’t feel like getting my pens out so I just used the round brush to do these letters. It was super tricky to write these tiny letters on the hearts! A trick is to pinch the bristles so they are very “pointy”. Then water down the paint just slightly to an ink consistency.
Use the dark version of the colors of the hears on each of the candies to do your words/ letters.
If needed, you can add a bit of black to the color to make it even darker.
As a final touch up, I “toned” the wood knots down a bit by brushing a thin layer of white paint over them (using the 3/4″ flat brush).
Also, I painted another leaf branch on the lower right!