This is the final tutorial on the little Christmas Tissue Box.

Today, I’ll be showing you an easy way to paint a snowman.

What you’ll need:

For the body, you’ll need some white & grey acrylic paint & a flat brush.

Dip one side of the brush into the white paint & dip the other side of the brush slightly into the grey paint.  You want more white than grey on the brush.

Work the paints into the brush by painting up & down on the plate.  Once the paint has been blended, with the grey paint towards the bottom, make a half circle.  The grey paint gives a shadow & some dimension to the little snowman.  Don’t worry if the grey looks a little dark.  You can always add more white to the brush.

Repeat for the second layer, making your half circles a little smaller.

And a third layer

And the head of the snowman:

Make a circle with the grey staying on the outside of the circle.

What you’ll need to give your little snow-person some character:

Acrylic paints in: orange, black, brown, black, grey & your choice of scarf color.  I used red for this version.

You’ll also need a detail brush, a few round toothpicks & an emery board or some fine sand paper.  Water & paper towels to clean you brush between colors.

Add a scarf:  I used red on one side of the brush & grey on the other side.  Using the tip of the brush gives you thin lines.  You can make the stroke wider by applying more pressure to the brush.  Put the scarf around the neck, paint in the tails of the scarf & then add a round stroke for the knot in the scarf.

Add some ear muffs by drawing a thin line at the top of the head,  Then make little ‘balls’ where the ears would be.  I just dabbed the tip of the brush in a circle pattern to give the ‘earmuffs’ a furry look.

To make the face, I’ve found that it’s easiest to use round toothpicks.  They make perfect little dots.  And depending on how large of a circle you need, depends on how big the toothpick end is.  To make the toothpick end larger, I use an emery board.  Just file the end of the toothpick on the emery board, keeping the toothpick straight up and down so the end is flat.

Add the face using different sized ends of the toothpick.  To make the nose, I made a large dot of orange, then dragged the paint with the toothpick to a point.

With the detail brush, add some twigs for the arms & some uneven dots for the coal buttons.

One tip that I learned from a dear friend who was a ceramic teacher, always add directional dots to the eyes.  To do this, just use the end of the toothpick dipped into some white paint.  Make the dots at the same place on both eyes. These directional dots make the eyes appear to be looking in a direction & gives them life.

Play with it!  This is your creation.

Add some snow dots to the painting using a toothpick dipped into some white paint.

Add a bare tree and some snow!

Add some color!

Try adding some ornaments to the tree!

Once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are endless.  Have fun & let your creative spirit loose!

Happy Creating everyone!