Have you ever wanted to paint a mystical pink and purple unicorn in acrylic paints? Me too!!
I have always wanted to paint a unicorn and I finally have. This painting was so much fun and I loved using all the pretty pink and purple paints to make this unicorn really cute and girly.
In this post I’ll explain how I created this colorful unicorn painting. But if you prefer watching video, I have uploaded a video showing you the process onto my YouTube Channel. You can also watch it below:
If you want to watch the longer, full length process video so you can see exactly how I painted this cute unicorn in acrylic paints, then this is available on my Patreon. When you sign up you will get access to this as well as all of my other full length art tutorials and process videos! I also explain all of the exact paints, colors and materials that I use to create each animal painting.
So if you want to learn how to paint colorful animals then come and join us!
Right, let’s get started on painting this unicorn!
To paint this unicorn you will need:
- Acrylic paints (pink, purple, white, blue, yellow, gold, black)
- Canvas
- Paintbrushes
Step 1:
Start by using pink, purple and white paint to paint the background. I painted a pink cloud background, check out this video if you’d like to watch how I did this.
I then started to paint the first layer of the unicorn by painting a white edge on the side of the nose, where the brightest highlight will be.
Step 2:
Continue to use light coloured white, pink and purple paints to fill in the unicorn’s nose. Only use white for the very brightest areas, and then use light pink and purple for the other sections. These colours work really well for painting unicorns as they are really pretty and give the painting a magical and mystical feel!
Step 3:
Continue to paint the unicorns face using the light pink and purple paints. Then use darker purple and blue paints to fill in the more shadowed areas of the unicorn’s face. Use dark purple to paint the nostrils and under the mouth.
Step 4:
Use dark and light purple paints to paint the unicorn’s ears. This is just the first layer of paint so don’t worry if the texture isn’t quite right, just focus on blocking in the colours.
Use a dark shade of purple paint to paint the shadow that will be underneath the unicorn’s fringe.
Step 5:
Paint the unicorn’s mane using a range of pink, yellow, purple, blue and white acrylic paint. If you want to see exactly how I did this you can watch the full length video on my Patreon.
When painting the unicorn’s fringe, remember to leave out the section where the horn will be showing.
Step 6:
Now for the fun part! Let’s paint the unicorn’s horn. For this I used a mix of yellow, brown and gold shades of paint. Paint the shadows and highlights on the edges to emphasise the curved shape of the horn and make it look more three dimensional.
Step 7:
It’s time to paint the unicorn’s eye! Painting eyes is by far my favourite part of painting colourful animals. I have lots of videos on my YouTube Channel that explain and show you exactly howI paint animal eyes. This video specifically will help as it shows you how to paint a horse’s eye, which is very similar to a unicorns!
Step 8:
Paint the second layer of the unicorn’s face, using the same colours and shades of acrylic paint that you did in the first layer. This time just neaten everything up and add the texture of the unicorn’s fur.
Step 9:
Continue to add the second layer of paint until you are happy with how your unicorn painting looks! I love to add more contrast at this stage by darkening the shadows and brightening the highlights.
I hope you enjoy creating your very own cute and colourful unicorn painting!
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