10/02/2026
Gogh to the Pumpkin Patch - A project honoring Vincent Van Gogh
Presented by Art At Your Figertips, Saturday, October 3 at
PVAC 95th Anniversary Open House
1. We will be making a realistic, 3-dimensional pumpkin foreground, with a Van Gogh-inspired starry night background. Point out his thick, swirling lines, bold, bright colors, high contrast and visible strokes.
2. Begin by drawing a fairly large oval near the center of the page, and a smaller oval inside to indicate where the stem connects to the pumpkin.
3. On either side of the small oval, draw two curved lines to indicate the sides of the stem. Close off the stem and erase the unwanted lines.
4. Draw gentle, curved ridge lines coming out from the stem. (Study the top carefully.) Note that real pumpkins are slightly lumpy/bumpy and don’t necessarily have perfectly even ridges.
5. Draw a horizon line and some distant hills, “jumping over” your pumpkin to match the line on both sides.
6. Add some trees in the middle ground. Note that they overlap the hill line, and come slightly above the horizon line. Erase the unwanted line.
7. Using an orange oil pastel color in the segments of the pumpkin in curving lines. Note that it will not look really solid until they blend it.
8. Color in the steam and the ground using brown and/or green oil pastel. Blend with finger, staying inside the lines.
9. With a thin line, go over the grooves in the pumpkin with black or dark brown. Using an up and down motion, blend the black lines to soften them.
10. Add a shadow under the pumpkin and blend until it looks soft and shadowy.
11. Using your finger, pull up some of that shadow onto the lower 1/3 of the pumpkin to make a shadow on the underside.
12. Color in the green hills and outline the trees with thin black lines.
13. Add several yellow circles in the sky as stars. Make a white ring around each circle.
14. Add a dark blue or blues in a circular motion around the white halo of the stars.
15. Make another overlapping white line that that blends with the blue, making a light blue halo around the white.
16. Add just a few black lines to darken the sky.
