How to Paint and Decorate a Pumpkin to Look like a Werewolf

Painting and decorating Halloween pumpkins is now becoming a popular alternative to carving. Some people grow tired of the mess and work that carving a pumpkin requires, only to have their finished product begin to rot and warp in just a few days' time. There are really no end to the creative possibilities when it comes to painting and decorating pumpkins. If you would like to paint and decorate your Halloween pumpkin to look like a cute werewolf, just follow these easy directions.

Supplies you will need - If you want to paint and decorate your Halloween pumpkin to look like the cute werewolf in the photo, you will need a few supplies. Gather together brown acrylic paint (you may want to consider a more kid friendly type of paint if young children will be working on this project), and construction paper in brown, black, white and yellow. Additionally, you will need a hot glue gun, and a glue stick as well.

Step one - Before you begin the first step of painting your werewolf pumpkin, you will want to be sure that you have adequately covered your work space. Whether you are completing this project on the kitchen table or the floor, be sure to have a plastic tablecloth on hand so that you will not have to worry about paint seeping through to the surface below. Once your work space is prepared, simply paint your entire pumpkin with the brown paint. Set aside and allow to dry completely.

Step two - You will need to get creative for the next step. Making the ears for your werewolf pumpkin can be a little tricky, but the general idea is to create shapes that are rounded along the top edge, pointed at the end, and cut sort of "shaggy" along the bottom. Cut the ears out of brown construction paper. Next, cut two smaller, but similar shapes out of black construction paper, and use your glue stick to affix these to the center of your werewolf's brown ears. To glue the ears to the pumpkin, use your hot glue gun and apply a small amount of glue where you will affix the lower portion of the werewolf's ears to the pumpkin. Affix just one ear at a time, and hold each ear in place so that it sticks out from the pumpkin a bit until the glue has dried enough to hold it in place.

Step three - Making the werewolf eyes for your pumpkin takes a little bit of thought, too. Take a couple of minutes to examine the eyes on the werewolf pumpkin in the photo, and try to duplicate them, drawing them first on yellow construction paper and then cutting them out. Next, cut elongated, pointy ovals out of black construction paper to create the pupils of the werewolf's eyes, and then glue them onto the yellow eye shapes with your glue stick. Finally, glue each eye to the pumpkin with the glue stick.

Step four - The werewolf mouth is simple. Just duplicate the shapes in the photo and cut what you need from black and white construction paper. Then, just glue them in place using your glue stick.