Bear Mountain Painting

Description:

This is a very easy beginner canvas painting for the absolute beginner! I did this on a 16″ x 20″ canvas with economical acrylic paints. You can do it too, no experience required! This also makes an excellent DIY paint night too.

You will learn how to paint this beautiful landscape with purple mountains, a turquoise sky and a bright white moon. Then add a bear silhouette to your painting by simply transferring the outline of the bear with white chalk or graphite!

Finish your painting with a gold sharpie and add your favorite bear adventure quote on the moon!

If you’re feeling extra creative, you can mix and match the bear silhouettes or make a family of bears! I am providing you the template for the bears so you can adjust the sizes as needed.

Hope you enjoy, don’t forget to share your painting on our Facebook page or Pinterest!

Happy Painting Artists!

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See Another Painting With Similar Colors:

Duration/ Level:

1.5 Hours, Level Very Easy

Materials:

16″ x 20″ Canvas
Bear Template To Print
Acrylic Paint (I used Liquitex BASICS except for Phthalo Turq I used “Fine Touch” from Hobby Lobby.)
- Phthalo Turquoise (This is a dark turquoise)
- Titanium White
- Mars Black
- Violet (Dioxazine Purple or any dark, cool purple.)
Brushes
- Large flat (1″)
- Small flat (1/4″)
- Small Round
Chalk or White Charcoal Stick (To transfer the bear)
Gold Sharpie and/or White Paint Pen (If you’re doing the single bear version)
9″ Paper Plate to trace the moon

Templates:

Go to the Traceable library to grab the free downloadable PDFs

Video

Directions At A Glance:

Step By Step Pictures

1. Draw The Moon & Mountains

Trace a 9″ paper plate on your canvas. If you are using a smaller canvas, just find a smaller circle to trace!

Use a ruler to draw the horizon line 4.5″ from bottom. Draw mountains lightly with a pencil. See composition below.

This is not necessarily to scale. But as you can see, the mountains are a zig-zag line that do not touch the horizon line. The points are different heights as well. Remember to draw lightly with your pencil.

2. Paint The Moon & Sky

Apply white paint to the moon in circular strokes.

Paint the sky turquoise. Then, rinse your brush and paint the sides black. Blend the black with the turquoise by painting over turquoise slightly. Be careful not to spread the black too close to the moon.

Use a clean, smaller flat brush to paint some solid white moon rings. Your paint should blend with the turquoise a bit.

Touch up the moon if necessary. Also, do not worry if you painted over your mountain lines.

3. Paint The Mountains

Use a flat brush to paint the mountains violet.

When the violet is still wet, paint the tops white. Basically I painted white from the top of the points and pulled down. Pay attention to the angle of each mountain when you are pulling the paint down. This will help to define the depth of each mountain. I go back in and add more white to the tips in a later step after this purple has dried.

Mix violet with a tiny bit of black. Paint a small lumpy area of land. Do not go below the horizon line. Also, make sure this area is not too dark because the bear silhouettes will have to stand out.

Define the horizon line with a flat brush.

4. Paint The Water

Use a flat brush to paint horizontal strokes of turquoise. Leave the middle blank for now.

Add white to your brush without rinsing off. Paint the middle with the same strokes. It should show up lighter and blend with the turquoise. Instant moon reflection!

Paint light strokes of white until you are satisfied with how the water looks.

Rinse brush. Use same brush to lightly add some horizontal strokes of purple to indicate mountain reflection.

5. Paint The Snow

Go back and add more white to the mountain tips using a flat brush.

6. Transfer The Bears

To trace the bear, I rubbed white charcoal on the back of the print out and then traced the front with a pencil. This also works with regular white chalk! It will be enough to see the bear and paint it in!

Use a small round brush to paint inside the lines.

Paint some white highlight lines on edges of bears.

7. Add A Quote

Use a gold sharpie to draw your quote. I also recommend drawing in pencil first if you are not sure how you want your letters to look. If you don’t have a gold sharpie, you can try a permanent marker or paint with a tiny brush!

The gold shows up beautifully in the sky! I drew some tiny stars everywhere.

8. A Final Touch

mountain painting with bear silhouette, i love you to the moon and back — As a final touch, I actually splatter painted some stars. Do this by flicking some watery white paint with a brush or toothbrush.

Finished!

Bear Silhouette Design Variation:

forget about your worries and your strife For this painting, I used an 11″ x 14″ sheet of canvas paper, turquoise paint (the same color as version one), titanium white, mars black, a gold sharpie and a white paint pen!

1. First I drew the horizon line about 4.5″ up. I did not draw any mountain lines.

2. Then I traced my circle just like the version one painting, except I used a smaller circle because this was a smaller canvas.

3. Then I painted the sky and moon exactly the same way as the version 1 painting. I went almost all the way down to the horizon line (knowing I was going to paint trees, I left some area blank.

4. While the sky was drying, I painted the bottom half of the painting with white paint.

5. Then I painted the trees with titanium white. I did use the same technique for painting trees as my Snowman Starry Night Tutorial! Note that the picture below shows tree shadows and I ended up painting over those in the end!

6. Next I traced the bear silhouette on the canvas paper by rubbing a graphite pencil on the back of the paper and tracing it (just like I did in version one of the painting, only with graphite and not white charcoal).

7. Lastly, I painted the bear in with Mars black, waited for it to dry and drew my quote out with the sharpies and paint pen!