Christmas time can inspire wonderful memories of traditional Christmas Puddings. Follow this step-by-step rock painting tutorial to paint your own rock Christmas Pudding.
Step 1: You’ll need a plump, rounded rock, the rounder the better.
Step 2: Find the widest circumference edge of the rock and using an ordinary pencil, draw a wavy line all around the edge so that it meets up at the other end.
Step 3: Using Chocolate Brown, paint the bottom half of the pudding, keeping your edges at the wavy line, nice and neat. A Round 4 brush is ideal for this.
Step 4: Finish off the bottom of the pudding using Chocolate Brown and once the paint is dry, give it a second layer if needed. A Flat 4 brush is ideal for bigger, flatter areas.
Step 5: Flip the rock over so the chocolate colour is at the bottom and start to paint white on top, paying careful attention to the wavy line, where it meets the brown. This edge should be clean and neat and a Round 4 brush is ideal for this and a Flat 4 brush is ideal for bigger, flatter areas.
Step 6: The white may need a second or a third layer of paint depending on how dark the original rock is. Only stop adding layers of white paint when your white is nice and flat when dry. Paint each layer thinly (not thickly painted) and rather build up thin layers of paint. Make sure each layer is completely dry before starting with another layer.
Step 7: Once your final white layer is completely dry, use an ordinary pencil and make a tiny mark at the top centre of the white area. Around this mark, carefully draw 3 circles. The circles will be close together with their edges touching. These will be red berries when we’re finished.
Step 8: Once your three circles (berries) are drawn, draw a line, starting a the centre point where two of the circles touch edges, draw your line out towards the edge of the white but not all the way to the edge.
Step 9: Start again at the centre with your pencil and draw three curves/scallops to create the one side of a holly leaf.
Step 10: Start again at the centre with your pencil and draw another three curves/scallops to finish the other half of the holly leaf.
Step 11: Once your first holly leaf drawing is complete, draw the other two holly leaves following the same steps in steps 8, 9 and 10.
Step 12: You should have a convincing looking drawing of three holly leaves with three berries at their centre. Use Parsley Green to paint the three holly leaves paying careful attention to keeping the outside edges neat. Keep the paint layer thin, there will be some brushstroke texture showing but that’s how we want it to be.
Step 13: Once all three leaves have one layer of green paint, paint a second layer of green onto only the left half of each of the three holly leaves. A Round 1 brush is ideal for the leaves.
Step 14: When all your green paint is dry, start carefully painting the berries using Cherry Red paint and Round 1 brush.
Step 15: Once all three berries have been painted, check to see if they need a second or third layer to make them a solid red.
Step 16: When the flat berries look good and the paint is dry, take a small amount of Cherry Red and Chocolate Brown paint and put them on a mixing dish. Mix the two colours together to form a very dark red. Using a Round 1 brush, carefully paint an arched shadow area on the bottom left area of each of the three berries. This will give them more of a rounded, 3-dimensional look.
Step 17: Once all three berries have their darker shadow areas you can use Lily White again with a fine brush, to paint thin lines through the centre of the holly leaves. A Round 4/0 brush will work well for this.
Step 18: When all three holly leaves have their centre spine, use a dotting tool to create highlight dots on the berries. The dots should all be on the same side of the berries (top right), opposite the berry shadow (bottom left).
Step 19: Once all three berries have their highlight dots, you can use a dotting tool and Sterling Solver paint to create a random spread of silver dots to represent silver balls.
Your Christmas Pudding is complete, well done!