Quick or Treat: DIY No-Carve Watercolor Pumpkins for Halloween

Watercolor pumpkins – and they’re no-carve!

I put my painting and drawing degree to the test to make some painterly, watercolor pumpkins just for fun. I was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out, so I took some photos to share, just in case you want to make your own.

They’re SUPER easy! And if you stick to a color palette of just 3 colors, you’re golden no matter what. Bonus! Since they’re no-carve, you won’t have to worry much about the mess (or all the bugs that seem to get into all those carved pumpkins that sit on the porch). Win-win! Here’s what you’ll need to make your own watercolor pumpkins…

Since I hadn’t planned on sharing these initially, I only got one process shot, but they’re so easy to recreate, I don’t think you’ll need much more than that…

Materials for watercolor pumpkins

• acrylic paint (or even house paint is fine)
• paint brush
• water
• pumpkins

How to make watercolor pumpkins for Halloween

1. The process is really simple. Choose a color scheme. I found it helpful to just pull a handful of colors that worked well together, as opposed to selecting any and every color under the sun.

Once you have your colors picked out, paint all the pumpkins in solid colors.

2. Wait for the paint to fully dry, then grab a smaller brush and, with a different color, start adding paint in various areas in kind of a splotchy pattern.

Then dip your brush in water and run the brush over some of these splotchy areas. This will create a more painterly effect, that also some drips and a little more variation in the paint (from highly concentrated paint areas to areas that look more like watercolor).

3. Wait for the paint to dry again, and add additional paint colors if desired, using the same process as step 2.

You can also draw fine lines and interesting patterns with paint pens and permanent markers if that’s more your thing. Lots of options with this one.

For more DIY no-carve pumpkin ideas, check out my balloon dipped pumpkins and cat eye pumpkins.

What 3 colors would you choose for watercolor pumpkins like these?