Painting Seagulls Canvas Art Tutorial

Canvas painting is an interesting activity that many people do at home. Join us for this Seagull Art Tutorial with your kids!

You can do one in your free time with the kids or have a group of friends come and draw together.

*This post contains affiliate links*

We love Summer Crafts for Kids. Inspire your passion for canvas painting and spark your child’s creativity by letting them color our collection of Charming Bird Coloring Pages.

Not only will they have a blast, but they will also gather inspiration for their canvas masterpieces!

Our tutorial will guide you through this painting and the beauty of it is that you can take the tutorial as a guide and then add your own touches to make it yours.

We added beach sand to create texture on the sand in the painting, so it creates more interest and something different.

You can do the same thing or if you don’t like adding texture, go through all the steps and remove the texture.

Instructions for drawing art with seagull fabric

What you need:

• Canvas painting 1- 16″ x 20″
• glass of water
• tissue
• tablecloth or bedclothes (disposable tablecloths)
• 1 teaspoon beach sand
• acrylic paint (blue, pink, brown, white, black, gray and any other color you like)
• paintbrushes (various sizes, such as small for bird and water details, up to 1 inch)
• easel if you like
• pencil
• eraser
• transfer paper and tracing (optional – if you are creating multiple pages of the same canvas)

Step-by-step instructions

Seagull sketch

The first step is to draw the seagull on the canvas with a pencil in rough form.

You want it to be off-center and not large so you have plenty of space for water and sand.

He has a long oval shape in the middle, tilted to the right, then extends the tail outward and adds a head and beak.

If you’re doing this painting with more people, use tracing paper to draw your bird, then transfer the paper to add the bird to their drawing if you don’t want everyone to waste time drawing.

This helps the team keep most of the steps the same.

Sugar

Once you have placed the bird on the canvas, you can start painting.

You want to start with a solid coat of sand tan because it takes more than one coat to get even coverage; Brown tends to soak in quickly and requires more paint.

Using a small to medium thin brush, draw the horizon line where you like.

You can paint lower or higher depending on the amount of sand and water you want to paint.

If you like more blue in the canvas, lower the line. Draw the line across and extend it around the bottom edges of the gull.

The line helps you keep it in place when painting with a larger brush.

Once your line is complete, move on to a large brush, anywhere from about half an inch to an inch, whatever you feel comfortable using.

Then paint all the sandy areas brown.

Apply it well, but you don’t have to worry about finishing it this round because you’ll be sanding and painting it later.

Paint both the top and bottom sides of the canvas brown.

If you’re on an easel, turn the canvas upside down and let it dry for a few minutes before turning it over again.

Next, repeat the steps for the sand with your chosen water color.

Paint a thin line of blue just above the top of the sand so it’s fairly straight and neat (it doesn’t have to be perfect, you’ll paint over it later) and paint around the bird’s body.

Next, paint in the rest with a large brush until the top half is watercolor.

Don’t forget to paint the sides and top of the canvas.

seagulls

While the sand and water dry, this is a good time to start applying a coat of paint to the bird.

For the gray and white bird, paint the entire body except the head dark gray.

You can use dark gray or light gray; partly your preference, but this will create an underlay for him and you’ll add layers of feathers later, so this helps give him dimension, so it’s fine if it’s darker than the result you want for the final color.

Black is too dark, so if you make a black tail, paint the tail and edges of the body black and only the middle.

Then paint the rest white, maybe mixed with black, it will look very nice.

Paint the dog’s head white (or whatever color you choose), leaving out the eyes and beak, then paint them black.

His legs haven’t been painted on yet so don’t worry about those.

Sandy beach

Now we add sand and a second coat of paint.

Take a blank spot on your palette or plate and add 1 teaspoon of sand.

Using a medium to large sized brush, dip the brush into the brown paint and directly into the sand.

Follow the next steps in our gull canvas painting tutorial.

Create a small hill underneath the bird to give it a foothold by making a semi-circle there, and you can add more ledges or humps in the sand in other areas if you like.

You want the main character to be with him to attract the viewer’s attention.

Use sand colors and a bit of gray to create lighter and darker shades of sand as you go.

Add more darkness to the hill he’s standing on, to one side and a little below where he’s standing like a shadow.

Sand tones should be added in flat areas that will receive more sunlight than other areas.

Keep dipping in sand and paint and adding more until you’re happy with the amount you have.

You can coat it or you can do a small, delicate amount.

The sand sticks quite well and effectively to the paint, and we had no trouble if the sand didn’t adhere well to the paint.

Some people like to stick a few small seashells on the end, so if you like that idea and want some in your sand, set them aside.

Sea

You can paint two tones of watercolor, one darker than the other, or do one tone and use white for emphasis.

Go back to the blue you drew and see where it needs editing.

You will want to mix colors. Blending sometimes takes a lot of layers and patience.

Take a medium to large sized brush and dip one corner in this blue and the other corner in that blue, then paint horizontally, blending them into your chosen area.

You can keep darker tones on the bottom half and light colors on the top.

If you find it’s not smooth or your brush is dragging, you probably don’t have enough paint on your brush.

Continue working back and forth with the dual colors on the brush until you feel you have applied enough of the second color. Then add a lighter tone, blend it all in until it’s smooth and you’re satisfied.

Wave

The final step to perfect the water is to add white accents to create movement in the water.

You can use straight white or blend white with the blue you used if you want it to be more subtle.

Take a small, thin brush and draw some random lines to make the water look deep, and you can also add a wavy line or two if you want.

Painting of Coast and Waves

Create an inflow of water by creating side-by-side semicircles along the stream.

Step back from the painting, see where you think more white might be needed, and add that in if needed.

You can also add a little highlight to add some pop by sprinkling in white dots.

To do that, mix white paint with a brush full of water and dilute the color.

Then, hold the brush against the canvas while laying it flat on the table and tap it with another brush to create small streaks.

This gives the idea of ​​splashing water. The higher you hold the brush, the smaller the splatter will be.

Once you like the water, you must finish off the seagull.

Details of the seagull

Add any second coat he may need, using a smaller brush to create the outer lines of the body so they stay smooth and clean, and add a feathery look.

Draw some lines where his wings are on his back to create dimension, following the curve of the wings.

Shade his lower body by adding a darker tone, like gray or black.

On the beak and eyes, add highlights to the eyes and along the midline of the beak add gray or white, just gently.

You can add a small outer circle along the eye with contrasting colors like white or gray.

Take a small brush with black paint and paint on the legs and feet.

At this point, you should be done with everything – check your edges and sides, then step back to see if you think anything needs to be added.

Let it dry for about 20 minutes, if possible, and you’re ready to go!

Inspire children to be creative and freely express themselves when making seagulls.

Each painting has its own beauty and uniqueness.

We hope our gull canvas painting tutorial was fun!

Want instant access to all of our printable crafts, activities and resources?

With thousands of crafts, activities, worksheets, coloring pages, and drawing guides to print, you’ll always have the resources you need at hand. Perfect for both parents and teachers!

Sign up now and start printing!

Categories: Activities for Kids
Source: fetb.edu.vn