Painting colorful animals is SO much fun, especially when that animal is an alpaca (because who doesn’t love alpacas?!) They must be one of the cutest animals on earth and their cute and funny expressions make the painting even better.
In this art tutorial I’m going to show you how I painted this colorful alpaca painting using acrylic paints. I have also filmed the process and you can watch the video on my Youtube Channel below:
If you would like to watch the full length video of me painting this colorful alpaca in real time, then just sign up to my Patreon. You will get instant access to this as well as all of my other full length art tutorials, process videos and more!
Let's paint this alpaca!
To paint this rainbow alpaca you will need:
- Acrylic paints (teal, turquoise, yellow, brown, white, pink, purple, blue and black)
- Paintbrushes
- Canvas (I used 11″ x 14″ but any size will work!)
- Heavy body gel medium (optional)
Step 1:
Start off by painting the background in acrylic paints. I used a mixture of blue, teal and turquoise paints to paint my background. I also mixed in a heavy body gel to the paints to add more texture and I used a large wide paintbrush to create big, thick brushstrokes.
Step 2:
Start off by painting the highlights using a light yellow paint. I used yellow acrylic paint to paint any part of the alpaca that would be where the sun was lighting his face the most. I like to use warm tones when mimicking the sunlight in my animal paintings.
Step 3:
Continue to paint the first layer of the alpaca’s face in colorful acrylic paints. Moving to cooler tones of paints as you reach the more shadowed parts of the alpaca’s face. I moved from yellows, to pinks to purples as I got nearer to the other side of the face.
Step 4:
Continue filling in the alpaca’s face using pink and purple acrylic paints. Use lighter shades of pink paint where the lightest highlights are, and darker shades of purple paint where the darker shadows are, such as around the eyes and underneath the fluffy wool.
Step 5:
Darken the shadowed areas of the alpaca’s face using dark purple acrylic paint. This will add more contrast to the painting and make it look more colorful and vibrant overall.
Learn more about how to use color to make a painting stand out by joining my Patreon. I love to teach you about making colorful art 🎨
Step 6:
Once you finish the first layer of paint, let it dry and then paint a second layer. In this second layer, use the same colors of acrylic paint, but this time add more paint on to get more texture, especially in the alpaca’s fluffy wool. This makes the painting more fun and playful, which really suits the alpaca’s personality!
Step 7:
Paint the alpaca’s nose using a mix of blue, purple and black paint, saving black just for the inner sections of the nostrils. Then you can paint the alpaca’s big beautiful eyes! Use a mix of black, brown and purple paint to paint the eyes, and don’t forget the highlight in the eye – that’s the most important bit!
Step 8:
Finish off your cute and colorful alpaca painting by using a smaller brush to add details – such as fuzzy pieces of wool and extra highlights on the alpaca’s face and eyes!
I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial, learning how to paint colorful alpaca’s and animals in acrylic paint! If you want to watch videos showing you how to paint other colorful animals then subscribe to my Youtube Channel, where I regularly upload animal art tutorials!
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