Continue with short lines which are slightly slanted inwards.
Dia De Los Muertos Sugar Skull Painting Tutorial
This acrylic painting tutorial will demonstrate how to paint a Calavera de Azúcar (Sugar Skull). The sugar skull is a symbol seen in the Mexican tradition used to celebrate departed loved ones on Dia De Los Muertos. It is a very colorful skull adorned with flowers, various designs & whimsical patterns!
This is a very easy beginner level painting that you can customize with your own colors and patterns. I will show you how I did my painting, however, feel free to change your colors, flowers and add your own unique designs! You can get inspiration for designs by searching for “Sugar Skull” designs online.
You can also get very crafty with this painting and add glitter, glow in the dark paint and/or other fun accessories!
Enjoy and happy painting!
Materials
Yield: One 11 x 14 Canvas
Learn how to paint a sugar skull with acrylics on canvas.
Active Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Difficulty Very Easy
Materials
- 11 x 14 Canvas
- Acrylic Paint
- Brushes
- Chalk
- Optional Traceable
Colors (These can be custom!)
- Mars Black
- Titanium White
- Pyrrole Red
- Primary Yellow
- Primary Blue
- Turquoise Blue
- Medium Magenta
- Hooker’s Green Hue Permanent
Brushes
- 3/4″ Flat Wash
- #8 Round
- #4 Round
- 5/0 Round
DIY Day of the Dead Sugar Skull Ceramic Art Decor
This DIY Day of the Dead Sugar Skull Ceramic Art Decor is SO awesome to create and have fun with! It turned out to be a fantastic cultural lesson for my children and looks pretty sweet on my mantel! Oriental Trading sent us the ceramic skull which is only $6 (or you can buy a dozen mini ceramic skulls for under $20). I wish I could buy a zillion of these – they are SO cool and are quite large! You definitely can’t beat the price on these things.
All we needed besides our skull was one or two craft flowers and a pack of markers! We colored with markers directly onto the skull and then just glued two flowers to the top with hot glue! I LOVE DIY Day of the Dead projects. The sugar skulls look SO ornate but they are actually quite easy to create even if you aren’t so crafty. Each side is fairly symmetrical. I based my skull off of one of our Day of the Dead coloring pages. I printed out the coloring page, colored it how I wanted, then did what I could to copy it by drawing it onto my ceramic skull. The top and sides of the skull I just drew a few leaves and lines to match the rest of the patterns. Isn’t it stunning?! I LOVE the way it turned out!
My favorite part is that gorgeous flower on the chin of our DIY Day of the Dead ceramic skull! I can’t believe how well it turned out!
Since the ceramic is all white I decided to outline the indents of the teeth in black to define them better. I added a bit of yellow directly above it for some color.
Here’s a top view so you can see how I decorated it. If you love this then you’ll love baking and decorating our Day of the Dead Sugar Cookies too! And while you’re waiting for those to bake make sure to PRINT our FREE Day of the Dead Coloring Pages!
1 Person Made This Project!
GeorgiaMom87 made it!
Did you make this project? Share it with us!
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4 Comments
Reply Upvote
This is wonderful! Such a beautiful job and such thorough instructions 🙂
1 reply
hellovillain Penolopy Bulnick
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Reply Upvote
Many thanks! Have a lovely day.
Reply Upvote
This is a really excellent tutorial. I would love to see more how-to-draw Instructables of this caliber. So easy to follow and understand!
1 reply
hellovillain scoochmaroo
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Reply Upvote
Thank you kindly! I aim to please.
