This cactus painting idea is just the cutest! Easy enough for kids and tweens to do on their own and looks so bright and colorful hanging up on display.

We love exploring different painting techniques. Take a look at my collection of painting ideas for kids for more fun and creative art projects to try!

This is a simple painting project that uses only a few supplies you may already have at home!

If you are looking for more cactus art projects, take a look at this fun 3D paper cactus craft with tissue paper flowers!

Create your own cactus painting

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Supplies

• Paint palette
• Acrylic paint in shades of green, and colors for the background and flowers
• White cardstock
• Colorful cardstock or construction paper
• Paintbrushes
• Black fine tip paint pen
• Scissors
• Pencil and eraser

Instructions to make your cactus painting

1. First, you want to cut your paper to size. I cut ours to 6 x 6 inches. We used white cardstock for this project but you can also use a canvas if you like.

2. Decide on a colorful background color for your cactus, something that will contrast nicely with the green in your cactus and also the flowers. Paint your paper with your background color and let it dry.

We used a bright yellow for one painting and orange for another. Using a bigger flat brush for this step makes it easier for kids!

3. Once your background color is dry, draw on your cactus lightly with a pencil. There are a lot of different cactus shapes kids can draw, they can use the shapes that we did as a guide or look at some cactus photographs and choose another shape.

Remind kids to press lightly with their pencil, so they can erase if they need to.

4. Now it’s time to paint your cactus! You can use just one shade of green to start or combine a couple of different shades to add some texture. We used 3 shades of green and mixed them together just a bit.

Remind kids to go slow around the edges. Using a smaller round brush will help with this step.

Kids can also outline their cactus with their paintbrush and then fill it in. This would be a good technique for younger kids!

Paint your entire cactus green. While the paint is still wet, add on a lighter shade of green in some places to add a few highlights. Don’t mix in the light green completely or it will just disappear.

Let your cactus dry before moving on.

5. Decide on your color for your flowers. You can use 1 shade or 2 shades of your flower color.

Using a small round brush and painting in an upward direction, paint 2 or 3 flowers onto your cactus. We used 2 shades of pink for one cactus and 2 shades of purple for the other.

6. Use a fine tip black paint pen to draw on your prickles. If you don’t have a paint pen, you can try using a very small detail brush and paint them on.

7. Choose a bright color of cardstock or construction paper, cut it down to size (I cut ours to 7 x 7 inches) and glue your cactus painting to your colored paper.   

I love how bright and fun this cactus painting idea turned out! They were easy enough for my 9-year-old daughter to make on her own and used just a few supplies we already had at home.

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