Art Class for Kids and Beginners: How to Draw & Watercolor Paint a Gingerbread Man for Christmas

1. Introduction and Supplies You Will Need: Hi friends, how are you? I hope you're having a great today. I'm excited about sharing this project with you. This is a drawing and watercolor painting project that I designed especially for kids. Students do not need to have any drawing or painting experience at all to be successful with this project. I will guide students step by step through all the steps that they need to take. Today we are going to be creating this cute little Gingerbread person. Let's talk about the supplies and the materials that you will need for this project. The first thing that you'll need is a sheet of watercolor paper. You will need a set of watercolor paints and a paint brush. I like to use a paint brush that's this size, but just use what you have available to you. You will need a cop era ble with clean water and a black oil pastel or crayon and you will also need a paper towel. Go ahead and gather all of those supplies and materials. And I'll see you back here in the next video. 2. Step 1: Draw a Gingerbread Man: In this step, we are going to draw our Gingerbread person design. Let's get started. The first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to pick up my black oil pastel or black cron. I'm going to find the middle of my piece of paper. The middle of my piece of paper is about right here. I'm going to go up just a little bit from the middle of my piece of paper and I'm going to go in about four or 5 ". That would be about six or 7 centimeters. I'm going to start about right here. What I'm going to do is I'm going to make an upside down letter C. Let me show you what I mean. I'm going to come along, I'm going to go over, almost go to the top but not touch, come around and then I'm going to stop about right here. You see if you turn that on its side, that could be a letter C, but it looks like it's upside down. Now this is going to be our Gingerbread person's face and head. All right, the next thing that we're going to do is create the arms and then the body. Let's come out with a straight line, not too long from each of these lines. These are going to be the tops of the shoulders. Then we're going to come back over here. Come end up about right here. See how I ended up a little bit in from the spot right here. Do the same thing on this side. These out of the way we're going to come. Then end up about right here. These are going to be the arms of our Gingerbread person. Now let's make the body and the legs down here at the bottom. We're going to start here at the end of this line. And we're going to make a slightly slanted line coming down like this. And then same thing on this side, about the same length. Now we're going to make the legs in. The feet down here at the bottom, I'm going to come and come back up. Come around and come back up. Then we're going to close this space right here with a curved line like this. There we go. That is our Gingerbread person's outline. Now that we have our shape of our Gingerbread person, we're going to add some details on the inside of our design. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to add some eyes. I'm just going to make some cute round eyes with my black oil pastel. Make them approximately the same size. Then I'm going to make a small mouth. I think I'm going to make a mouth like this. You can make any type of eyes or any type of mouth that you'd like. Now, I'm going to move down here. If you want to put a bow on your Gingerbread person, then you can go ahead and do that. Or you can put a bow up here if you'd like. It's up to you. I'm just going to put some buttons right here in the center, some circles for buttons. Then I'm going to put some decorations right here on the ends of these hands and feet. I'm going to go like this. All right, now that I have my designs on the inside of my Gingerbread person, I'm going to add some little candies on the outside of my Gingerbread person. I'm going to add some gum drops. Gum drops have this shape. They're flat on the bottom. And then they have a curve line above like this. I'm going to do that all around my Gingerbread person. There we go. I think that I'm finished. I really like this design. It's very cute and very simple. When we come back, we will start painting our ginger person design. 3. Step 2: Paint the Gingerbread Man Design: In this step, we are going to add some watercolor paints to our design. Let's get started. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to add a drop or two of water into each pan of paint. What this will do is it will soften up our paints so that they are easier for us to use. I'm going to take a moment to do that. I would suggest that you do the same. It will just make your painting experience a lot easier while our paints are softening up. Let's turn our attention to our design. Here we have our Gingerbread person. What we're going to do is we are going to start by painting our Gingerbread person and any of the designs inside. And then we're also going to be painting the little candies on the outside of the Gingerbread person. But we're not going to be painting the background. All right, that's any space that's behind those candies. Let's get ready by painting this Gingerbread person. First, I am going to add some water into one of my wells. Quite a bit of water, because I want to add a little bit of brown paint to this water in just a moment. I want to make it pretty light brown color. Light brown color too. Light, but not dark. Because when I think of Gingerbread, not really light, but they're not dark either. Let's start here at the top and see how that actually, that looks perfect. Got it, right. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to paint my whole entire Gingerbread person except for the designs. And I'm going to speed up this video and I'll see you back here in just a minute. All right, friends. Now I'm finished painting my Gingerbread person. Now I'm going to go ahead and paint the buttons and then the little candies. There we go. Okay, great. Now I have my Gingerbread person painted, and then I also have my candies painted. And I'm going to leave this area white right here, because I'm thinking of that as being some frosting on the Gingerbread person's arms and legs. I'm going to stop right there. When we come back, we will start painting the background. 4. Step 3: Paint the Background: In this step, we are going to paint the background. Let's get started. The first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to put a few drops of water into one of my wells. Then I'm going to add some green paint because I want my background, for my Gingerbread person to be green. I think that, that will look great. I'm going to go ahead and do that. Add a little bit of green paint. I don't want it too too. I'm going to start up here. See how that looks. Actually, it looks great. Maybe I'll add a little bit more paint. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to paint this background. All right, friends, I'm finished painting the background. I think that my painting looks awesome. I hope that you had a lot of fun with this project. I had a lot of fun teaching you. Thanks for watching and I will see you next time.