I painted this Saguaro Cactus Freehand Acrylic Painting at a class. We started out with a blank 1″ x 14″ Canvas.
Saguaro Cactus are only found in the Sonoran Desert. I live is southern Arizona (3 hours south of Phoenix and about 17 air miles from the Mexican border). My elevation is about 4000 feet so there are not too many that grow in the wild here. As we get closer to I-10 and Tucson we see more wild Cactus. Quite a few people plant Cactus in their yards. There are too many pricklies for me so I don’t have any Cactus in my yard.
How I Did It:
I was at a Church Women’s Activity. There was a Teacher who had a Sample Painting for us to follow. She provided all the acrylic paints, several sizes of brushes, and paper plates to put our paints on. It has been quite a few years since I used acrylic paints.
First we drew a pencil line of all the Cactus. We then painted our whole Canvass with White Paint. I made sure my pencil lines were still visible.
We then painted the sky. She suggested adding a hint of pale green paint to the blue, but I left mine just light blue. The sky was painted with diagonal brush strokes. I did not worry about complete coverage of the sky area and liked how it turned out.
I then outlined each Cactus with a really dark green paint using thin lines. Then I used the same paint to make the ridges on the cactus.
A lighter green paint was used in between the ridges to cover the indent between the ridges.
Bluish Green paint was added next to some ridges, but not all.
White paint with a really thin brush tip was used next to the ridges to highlight them.
Pink paint was used for the flowers. The lighter pink paint had white paint added to it.
A little light yellow paint with some white added is in the center of the flowers.
The end of a paint brush was dipped in the yellow and white paint mixture and dotted on the ridges. This is supposed to represent the prickly needles that cover the ridges.
I am rather pleased with how my painting turned out.
Try making your OWN Saguaro Cactus Freehand Acrylic Painting.
Here are two Articles if you want to learn more about Saguaro Cactus.
Eight Things You Might Not Know About Saguaro Cactus. There are a few pictures.
The Saguaro Cactus: An Arizona Desert Icon. This has lots of interesting facts.
