Make this adorable watercolor mushroom painting using bright bold colors and easy watercolor techniques! Kids will learn to use salt to create texture, use oil pastels as a resist technique, and try an easy wet-on-wet watercolor technique.

This is a great art project for older kids and tweens. Kids can choose the type of mushrooms and colors they want to use, making each painting unique!

There are so many fun watercolor techniques for kids to try! Take a look at my collection of watercolor painting for kids for more fun and creative ideas. 

Create your own watercolor mushroom painting

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Supplies

• Watercolor paper
• Watercolor paint (I used a paint set for this project, but you can also use liquid watercolors and a paint palette)
• Paintbrushes
• White oil pastel
• Coarse salt
• Pencil & eraser
• Water dish
• Paper towels

Instructions for your mushroom art project

1. First, you need to prepare your paper. I used watercolor paper that was 11×15 inches and cut it in half so that each piece was 11×7.5 inches.

There are so many different types of mushrooms with varying shapes, sizes, and colors! Kids can choose to follow along exactly with my tutorial or look at photos of different types of mushrooms and make their own drawings.

Start your drawing

Start by drawing a small patch of grass where your mushrooms will go, then draw your mushrooms on top of the patch of grass. Remind kids to press lightly with their pencils so they can easily erase if needed. I find groupings of odd numbers look best, so 3 or 5 mushrooms.

Paint the big mushroom using watercolors and white oil pastel

2. Decide on the colors you will be using for the big mushroom and test the colors out on a scrap piece of paper. Choose 2-3 colors for this mushroom.

Start by drawing on some dots with white oil pastel on the big mushroom. The oil pastel will act as a barrier and resist the watercolor paint.

Using a smaller brush, paint the mushroom with clean water first, being careful not to paint outside the lines. Paint the mushroom with your chosen colors while the paper is still wet. As you paint, the colors will dry and mix together on the paper. This is called a wet on wet technique.

If you want to explore more watercolor techniques, take a look at these easy watercolor techniques for kids!

The paint will repel the oil pastel and the white dots will show through.

Paint the stem the same way. First, paint the area with clean water and then paint with your paint color.

For the stem, I used a grey/brown color and painted a really light layer first, even leaving a bit at the bottom with no paint. I then went back in while the paper was still wet and painted in some darker areas.

Using a smaller round brush will help make painting the smaller areas easier.

Paint the smaller mushrooms with a wet-on-wet technqiue

3. Next, it’s time to paint the three smaller mushrooms. I choose shades of yellow, orange, and red for these. Again, using a wet-on-wet technique, paint one mushroom at a time. Start with clean water and then paint with your chosen colors.

Carefully paint the stems of the smaller mushrooms. I painted yellow at the top, blending into a light brown towards the bottom. You will need a fairly small brush for this part.

Paint the last mushroom and add salt

4. For the final mushroom, I chose a few different shades of blues and greens. You want to use the same wet-on-wet technique and this time have some coarse salt handy to sprinkle on while your paper is still wet.

As the paper dries, the salt will make interesting patterns in the paint! After you sprinkle the salt on, carefully set your paper aside to dry completely before moving on to the next step.

Once your paper is dry, carefully brush the salt off into a sink or garbage.

Because you have to wait for the salt to dry before you can continue painting, you might choose to paint this mushroom last after all the other mushrooms and stems have been painted.

Paint the stem the same way you painted the purple and pink mushroom. First, paint the stem with clean water, then paint a light layer of brown paint. While the paper is still wet, paint in some darker areas to add shading.

Paint the underside of the mushroom caps to add detail

5. To paint the underside of the mushroom caps, you will need a different shade of brown from the stems to add contrast. Paint these areas first with clean water and then a light layer of brown paint.

Put some more paint on your brush to make the color darker, and using a small detail brush, paint in the detail lines coming out from the stems like in the example photo above.

To soften up the detail lines, you can paint over the lines with a clean brush and water. This will blend the color a bit.

Paint the grass with watercolors and add salt

7. Once all your mushrooms and stems have been painted it’s time to paint the grass. You will need two shades of green and coarse salt for this part.

Start by painting the area with clean water, you want the paper to be quite wet. Paint the grass with the lightest green shade first, leaving some areas with no paint.

As you paint, you can paint in blades of grass, especially around the mushroom stems. Vary the length of the blades of grass to add more interest to your painting.

8. While your paper is still wet, begin to paint with the darker green shade. Paint in more blades of grass of varying lengths. You can go in and paint more layers to darken some areas up.

While the paint is still wet, sprinkle on some salt to help give the grass more texture. Leave this to dry completely. Once your paper is dry, carefully brush off the salt in the sink or garbage.

This is such a fun and colorful art project that kids will love to make! This watercolor mushroom painting idea will brighten up any space and make a great classroom display!

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