Here’s a great beginner-friendly paint project – whimsical mushroom houses.
Whether you paint with watercolor, gouache (like I used), or acrylics, these adorable, whimsical, brightly-colored mushroom houses are sure to add a smile to your face.
Full Disclosure: Chalkola sent me the paint & I received some compensation to make content using the products, but all opinions and creations are my own.
With autumn right around the corner, I started thinking about how I could use the changing season as inspiration. Well, one large rabbit hole later, I knew I wanted to paint some colorful mushroom caps. And what’s better than forest-inspired mushroom doodles? Definitely whimsical mushroom houses.
These houses are beginner-friendly for drawing and painting. And as a bonus, they also provided the perfect subject matter to try out the gouache paints I got from Chalkola.
Table of Contents
Paint With Me – YouTube
Painting Mushroom Houses with Gouache – Tips from the Video
I usually paint with watercolor, but trying new media is always fun! Spoiler alert: I also used gouache paints in my bullet journal (not in the video), and loved it.
In the meantime, here are some tips from the video that I learned about using Chalkola Gouache:
- Mix the right consistency of water and paint.
- The right consistency and a brush full of paint will go a long way.
- With gouache, do not keep adding water as you do with watercolor. This helps you keep the same water-to-paint ratio consistent.
- Gouache dries much faster than watercolor.
- Blending colors isn’t as easy with gouache as it is with watercolor.
- Creating hard-line shadows adds to the style and is easy to do.
- Wait for each layer to dry thoroughly.
- Be careful not to add too much water on top of dry layers, you can stir up paint from previous layers.
- Unlike watercolor, you can paint light colors on top of dark colors since the paints are more opaque.
- Gouache dries matte, so there is no shine when taking pictures.
- To lighten a color, add white instead of water.
How to Start Painting Your Mushroom Houses? Beginner-Friendly Tips & Tricks
Whether you are a beginner or not, it’s always good to have a general game plan. Here are some great tips for getting started with the paint and brush.
Looking for inspiration for your mushroom houses? Keep reading I’ve got an entire Pinterest board linked below exclusively for mushroom house inspiration. (LOL – it’s funny and true!)
Choose Your Media
Depending on your media (meaning paint), you can start with either dark or light colors. Generally, watercolor begins with the lightest colors and slowly builds to darker shades. However, if you paint these mushroom houses with gouache as I did, you can start with dark colors and layer lighter colors on top.
Choose Your Colors
Now that you’ve decided on your paint media, it’s time to choose your colors. I used bright, whimsical colors that contrasted well. For instance, the yellow stem with the purple house or the orange house with the blue ridges and door. Both sets of colors are complementary – meaning they are opposite on the color wheel from each other.
Want to know more about how to combine colors or determine what colors go well together? I found an article by Nayda Cruz – I love her simple graphics and explanations.
If you’re looking for more in-depth tutorials on color mixing, I compiled a list of Skillshare classes that are beginner-friendly.
Mix Your Colors
Since I was using gouache in the video, I needed to mix the colors consistently for a smooth texture. I found that gouache paint works the best for me if I keep the water-to-paint mixture the same throughout the painting process. Of course, that would be different if you were painting with watercolor. I also found that adding too many colors to my palette initially caused them to dry up before I was ready to use them.
Start Painting!
As a beginner, it’s hard to make that first brush stroke. Tell yourself ‘here goes nothing’ and put that brush to paper.
I’d love to know what you created and how your mushroom house paintings turned out. Don’t be afraid to try multiple styles! I know that I learned while filming that I preferred a hard shadow method with gouache rather than my typical style of blending colors.
Supplies Used:
Here are the supplies I used to paint these beginner-friendly mushroom houses:
How to Create Your Own Mushroom Houses
The easiest way to start painting your mushroom houses is to use a ready-made design. Beginner or not, it’s fun to jump into a project and start painting without having to draw, erase, and redraw your scene. If you want to follow my video, you can get the exact design I used in my shop!
How to Transfer the Design to Your Paper
Print the design, use a graphite transfer paper sheet over your paper, and trace the lines. The graphite will transfer to your paper underneath. Or you can use a lightbox and place the printed paper under your watercolor or drawing paper to trace the outlines.
Otherwise, if you want to doodle a unique design, start with one mushroom at a time. Then slowly add the community of houses. Short, stout mushrooms seem to work well for creating mushroom houses. It’s easier to paint these cute-as-a-button forest dwellings when you have a lot more surface area to paint. Unless you’d like to use very small detail brushes.
Doodle some basic shapes – test out rounded roofs (caps), see if you prefer pointer roofs or rounded caps—practice different body shapes. There is no rule that you can’t mix and match a tall-skinny mushroom with a large, flat cap. It doesn’t matter if they don’t exist in nature. I’m pretty sure these mushroom houses don’t exist except in creative imaginations. However, if you need more inspiration, check out the Pinterest board I’ve gathered below.
Find Inspiration and Style for Your Mushroom House
You’re in for a treat. Doodling mushroom houses is very easy and ultra forgiving even if you are a complete novice at doodling.
Here is a Pinterest Board filled with mushroom and mushroom house inspiration. As you can see from my finished art piece, I went simple and bright. You can choose to add complex elements and designs, or you can choose to stay simple. I’d love to see what you create!
