Making painted pumpkins for Halloween has become a yearly tradition for me. Each year I try to find a theme with three to four printable characters for my pumpkins. In past years I’ve done Nightmare Before Christmas, Ninja Turtles, classic monsters etc.

This year I turned to my Facebook family and friends for ideas on pumpkins this year. A few people mentioned the movie “Coco” and I realized as much as I love the movie this would be the perfect craft. I also knew it would be a challenge for freehand drawing to make the characters look like exact like movie.

I decided on the characters Ernesto de la Cruz, Hector Rivera, and Mama Imedla. As I suspected from the beginning, this was definitely the most challenging of the pumpkins I’ve painted in the past. But, once I finished I felt such a sense of accomplishment and was pretty happy with the results.

My favorite reason to make painted pumpkins is it saves me making a mess carving them. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned doing these painted pumpkins over the years is to spray paint the base of your pumpkin. It makes the process a lot easier and faster.

The key to painting pumpkins like these characters is to pay close attention to details, as well as, painting characters you’re actually interested in.

Who are some of your favorite Halloween characters? Figure out how you would like them to look on the pumpkins and go to work. Tag me in your pumpkins for this holiday season by sharing in the comments below or on any of my social media sites. 🙂