This pumpkin chalk pastel art is perfect for either a fall or Halloween project idea! I couldn’t decide which one I liked better, so I included both of these ideas into this tutorial. Start with the pumpkin and then kids can customize their sky to either a beautiful fall day or spooky Halloween night.
Pastels are so fun for kids to explore! Take a look at my collection of chalk pastel art for more creative ideas kids will love.
This pumpkin art is a great project idea for older kids and tweens, requires only chalk pastels and black paper and will produce wow-worthy art! It provides a wonderful opportunity for kids to learn and practice different chalk pastel techniques.
If you are looking for more fall art projects take a look at my collection of creative fall painting ideas for kids! There are ideas for kids of all ages that use different types of art materials and techniques.
Create your own pumpkin chalk pastel art
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Supplies
- Black drawing paper, pastel paper, scrapbook paper or construction paper
- Chalk pastels
- Pencil
- Paper towels
- Blending stick (optional)
- Workable fixative (optional)
Instructions
1. Start by getting your paper ready. I cut our paper to a 9 x 9 inch square. I find that when working with chalk pastels, it can be less intimidating for kids to work on a smaller scale.
We used black drawing paper for this project, but you could also use pastel paper, scrapbook paper or construction paper. Whichever paper you choose, the pastels will look and behave slightly different. But will still turn out great!
Start drawing in your pumpkin
2. It’s actually quite easy for kids to draw a pumpkin! Start by drawing a simple dot where you want the top of your pumpkin to be.
If you are doing the project with the full moon, your pumpkin will be lower on your paper. If you are coloring your sky blue, then your pumpkin can be bigger and take up more space.
From your dot, draw lines to form your pumpkin like in the example photos above. Add on a stem.
Using a jar or plastic lid as a template, draw in your full moon if you are including one.
Now move on to coloring in your pumpkin
Having newspaper down and paper towels on hand will help with the mess. Also taking a break in between steps to go and blow off the excess dust outside will help.
3. Start coloring in your pumpkin with orange chalk pastel. Kids can use the flat edge of the pastel or hold it like a pencil and color it in. It’s not necessary to fill in all the black, leaving some of the page showing through is fine.
Once the pumpkin in colored in, kids can blend the pastel with their fingers. Use your first 2 or your first finger for this. Remind kids not to blend the entire pumpkin, but just try smudging in a few places.
Some kids don’t like to use their fingers with chalk pastels, so they can use a blending stick or try using a q-tip.
For another fun pumpkin art idea, take a look at this mixed-media pumpkin patch art project that is perfect for tweens and teens!
4. Take a lighter shade of orange and holding your pastel like a pencil, draw in some lighter detail at the top of your pumpkin.
Do the same at the bottom with a darker shade of orange, following along with the photos above. Gently smudge the light and dark shades, blending them into each other.
Again, there is no need to blend the entire pumpkin, once kids have a chance to use and explore with chalk pastels, they will start to get the hang of blending!
5. Finally, using yellow chalk pastel, draw in some yellow highlights at the top of your pumpkin and lines to show the grooves of the pumpkin.
Kids will also love: Colorful Chalk Pastel Turkey Craft
6. To finish off the pumpkin, color in the stem with 2 shades of green.
Color in your blue sky
7. There is a lot of sky to color in, so using the flat edge of the chalk pastel works well for this step. Have kids start with 1 shade of bright blue and color in the background, drawing around their pumpkin, leaving lots of paper showing through.
Add in a second shade of blue and blend these two colors together, being extra careful around the pumpkin.
8. To finish off the sky, take a lighter shade of blue and holding the chalk pastel like a pencil add in some lines of this lighter shade. Have kids try smudging this lighter shade in a few spots.
Draw in a full moon
9. If you are doing the pumpkin project with the full moon, get white, grey and yellow chalk pastels ready.
Start by coloring in the moon with white and grey colors, and blend them together.
10. Add some yellow to the moon and blend, like in the photo above.
11. To finish off the full moon, use white and yellow chalk pastels to create a glowing effect around the outside edge. Carefully blend these two colors together.
You can spray your picture with a workable fixative if you like to help keep it from smudging, but I find this isn’t always necessary. This should be done by an adult only in an outside area.
Add the vines to your pumpkin
12. I think the curly vines really finish off this pumpkin pastel art nicely! Hold a green pastel like a pencil and draw in the curly vines. Draw a line right next to it with a lighter shade of green to add in some highlights.
With the bright blue sky, you can have the vines reaching up higher. We also added in some white dots for stars at the end for the full moon art project but this step is optional.
This pumpkin chalk pastel art makes such a great fall or Halloween project for kids! Using easy techniques, kids will love exploring chalk pastels to create this gorgeous art project.
We love creating and exploring with different art supplies. If you are looking for more art projects to try, take a look at our ultimate collection of amazing art projects for kids!
More chalk pastel art kids will love
Gorgeous Fall Leaf Chalk Pastel Art Kids can Make
Create Stunning Chalk Pastel Sunsets with Kids
Follow me on Pinterest for more amazing project ideas.
Pin this art/craft for later
Pumpkin Chalk Pastel Art Project - 2 ways
Kids will learn easy chalk pastel techniques to create this gorgeous pumpkin chalk pastel art done in 2 ways. This project can be used as an autumn art activity or Halloween project. Step by step tutorial makes this an easy and fun pastel art project!
Materials
- Chalk pastels
- Black drawing paper, pastel paper, scrapbook paper or construction paper
- Q-tip or blending stick (optional)
- Paper towels
Instructions
- Get your black paper ready, I trimmed ours to 9 x 9 inches.
- Draw a pumpkin using the photo tutorials above.
- If you are making the full moon project, use a glass or plastic lid as a template to draw the full moon.
- Using orange chalk pastel, color in your pumpkin. Smudge the pastels with your fingers or use a q-tip or blending stick.
- Add a lighter shade of orange on the top of your pumpkin and a darker shade on the bottom, like in the photos above. Blend these colors together.
- Draw in some highlights at the top and in the grooves of the pumpkin with yellow chalk pastel.
- Color in the stem using 2 shades of green.
- If you are doing the fall pumpkin with a blue sky, color the sky with 2 shades of blue and blend together. Using the flat edge of the chalk pastel helps to add in some texture and make this step go faster.
- Take light blue chalk pastel and add in some lighter highlights to the sky.
- If you are drawing in the full moon, use white and grey chalk pastel to color in your moon. Blend these 2 colors together.
- Add some yellow chalk pastel to your full moon like in the photos above. Blending in some of the color.
- Create a glowing effect with the full moon by drawing white and yellow lines around the moon, blending slightly.
- Draw in your vines with 2 shades of green pastel.
- If you want, use white chalk pastel and add in some stars to finish off your Halloween pumpkin art.
- You can spray your picture with a workable fixative to help keep it from smudging, but this is an optional step. This should be done by an adult only in an outside area.