Easy Christmas Painting (Watercolor Tutorial for Beginners)

Easy Christmas Painting for Beginners – Galaxy

There are so many fun holiday projects that are perfect for beginners. Today you’ll learn how to make an easy Christmas painting of a galaxy using watercolors.

Follow along with the step by step watercolor tutorial to create your own holiday watercolor galaxy painting.

If you’re not the best at drawing, you can download our free templates to help you with the basic shape of your Christmas project.

You’ll need some supplies so we’ll begin by looking at what they are.

* Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. This means I receive small commissions for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you.

Art Supplies

Watercolor paper
Watercolor paint
Brushes
Water
Tape (optional)
Paper towels

FREE Christmas Templates

Watercolor Paper

It’s up to you if you want to tape down your paper or not. The purpose of doing so is to keep it from warping as much.

The paper you use will make a huge difference in the results of your painting. Cheaper paper will warp and fall apart. And the color will not be as vibrant.

However, if you don’t have access to a better quality paper cardstock works pretty good in a pinch.

The colors aren’t as bright, and the paper doesn’t hold up as well. But it will get you by.

Stocking Template

Begin by drawing out your holiday shape on the paper. Try to draw it large enough to fill most of the paper if you can.

For this example, I’m using the Christmas stocking template for my shape. There are a lot of other holiday shapes you could use as well. Or, do the same type of watercolor painting in a shape that isn’t holiday related.

If you need some templates for your shapes, fill out the form at the bottom of the page to download our templates for free. There are several templates included in the file, as well as a silhouette of Santa’s sleigh.

Easy Christmas Painting with Watercolor Galaxy

For this painting the wet on wet technique will be used. This allows the colors to flow together and blend more easily.

Begin by adding clean water to the top of your stocking. You’ll want to come down on your paper slightly farther than where you intend to add your first section of paint.

Make sure you stay within your shape.

Wet on Wet Watercolor technique

Add your first color to the top section of your Christmas stocking. Blues and purples work really well for this. But feel free to choose whatever colors you like.

Choose your next color and add that to your Christmas stocking drawing. Allow areas of paint to blend together. If you add more water, your paint will flow together better.

Just avoid puddles of paint. If you get too much water, or too much paint, dab it up with a paper towel.

Work your colors back and forth with water and your two colors. When you’re happy with how that section looks, move further down your paper.

Add clean water to your paper as you work your way down.

Continue working with your colors until your entire stocking is painted. Keep working back and forth between your different colors and your clean water.

When you are satisfied with how your galaxy painting looks, set it aside and allow it to completely dry.

Add additional layers of paint where you want your galaxy to be darker. This is typically around the edges and especially in the corners.

Don’t forget to add your clean water first so you can work using the wet on wet watercolor technique.

Stars for Galaxy Painting

You have a few options for painting your stars for your galaxy. You can use white gouache. Which is an opaque watercolor paint.

This method looks really cool, but you don’t have a ton of control over where your stars will go. Just add some gouache that’s been diluted with a little water to a brush, and splatter it on your galaxy painting.

Since your background paper is white, the extra bits of paint that land on the paper really won’t hurt anything. Just use your paper towel to wipe up the extra splatters of white paint.

The other option is to use a white paint pen or a white Gelly Roll pen. Both work really well, but you have to apply each star individually.

I prefer to use a combination of the two. To do this, use the splatter paint method first. Then add in some controlled areas of stars with a paint pen as needed.

Finishing Up Your Christmas Painting of Galaxy

The final step is to decide how you want to finish your galaxy painting. You can leave the outline the way it is. Or you could make the outline stand out more.

I used a thick black marker to outline my Christmas galaxy painting.

Another option would be to cut your stocking out and mount it to a different piece of paper. Maybe a red or a black might look nice.

If you want to add a bit more detail to your Christmas painting, you can add in some trees along the bottom. And maybe even a quick drawing of Santa’s sleigh flying over the trees.