Free Painting Spider Shapes Design Ideas

If you are not already familiar with painting on pumpkins, here is a resource to learn all about it. This guide features making fun faces on pumpkins and is a great way to learn the ins and outs and how-to for this craft. Once you have learned the basics, you could go on to paint other types of designs on pumpkins. The possibilities are unlimited.

A must for Halloween, this Step-By-Step Guide offers instruction and photos for painting cute, whimsical faces on pumpkins:

Resource Link: Pumpkin Painting Step-By-Step Guide

If you plan to add purple behind the spider, paint the purple (or another color of your choice) in a splotch (an uneven circle), covering an area that will be somewhat larger than the spider body. Once that is dry, paint the spider shape on top of the color splotch.

Paint the spider's web on, using white if you want it to look like this example (or use another color of your choice). The web is just a series of lines and the one shown here is just an example (you can make your web altogether different and be original).

When the spider is dry, outline the outside edges of the spider with thin white lines.

The photo on the right gives you a closer look at the spider shape and the white that is outlining it.

Refer to the description for the photo above for more details on painting this design.

Paint the black web on the pumpkin first then paint the black silhouette shape of the spider, placed in the center of the web.

When the black web and spider are dry, add the white highlights by painting white beside one side only of each web strand (refer to the photo). Keep the white on the same side throughout (in the photo, all the white was added to the left-hand side or to the top of the strands going around the web).

Referring to the photo, paint white highlights on the spider shape, as shown (yours doesn't have to be exactly the same; this is just to give you a general idea). If you happen to think you ended up with more white on the spider than you like the look of, you can always paint over the extra white with black to get the look you want.

The white highlights give the appearance of light shining in from just one side.

The photo on the right gives you a closer look at the placement of the white highlights on the spider body and spider legs.

Adding these white highlights makes the spider look more three-dimensional.

Refer to the description for the photo above for more details about painting this design.

The photo on the right shows a closer look at the placement of the white highlights on the spider's web. It shows the left-hand side of the larger main photo of this design that is shown above.

These steps show a spider that is postitioned pointing a little to the side, to be the same as the position of the spiders shown in my painting idea examples above.

1. Begin with a circle.

2. Then add another circle that is a little smaller and that overlaps the first circle (off-center, above the first circle), as shown in the drawing.

3. To the top of the second circle (which is the spider's head), add two small shapes that look similar to horns.

See the next steps below.

4. The next part is to draw the two front legs on the spider. Refer to the drawing on the right to see how these are pointing somewhat forward and are long.

5. Next, draw the two legs closest to the front legs, one on each side. These are shorter and face almost straight out from the spider's body, but angled slightly forward.

6. The next legs, one on each side are shorter than the second pair of legs and point almost straight out but angle a little toward the back.

7. One on each side, the very back legs point backwards, with the very first part of the leg a straight line angled backwards and then curved as if the leg is bent (refer to the drawing).

This example shows a gray shadow of the spider and a gray shadow of the spider's web.

If you are adding a color splotch that will show behind the black spider (shown as a yellow splotch here), paint that color splotch first and let it dry.

Next paint the gray web and the gray spider shadow. The gray spider should be a little to the right of the spot where you will paint the black spider on. If you are going to want the black spider to be centered over the color splotch, then keep that in mind when planning the placement of the gray spider that will be the shadow.

When the gray is dry, paint the black web lines next, placing them so that each line will match the shape as close as possible of the gray line that is the shadow for it. Think of the black web as being moved a short distance over, off-center away from the gray shadow. You can see the look of this in the photo on the right.

The photo on the right shows the top left portion of the photo above, so you can get a closer look at the placement of the gray lines of the shadow.

Here is another spider design that I came up with.

It is very easy to paint or to draw using magic markers. This is a project that children, as well as adults, could enjoy doing.

This photo shows the final result. Following are more photos to show where to start with this design and how to progress to add more to it, if you want it to look something similiar to the finished example I have shown here.

This design is so easy that anyone who does not consider themselves to be artistic at all can still do this one. It does not have to end up exactly like the one I came up with but following this example can give you a basis for starting and for adding to it to get your own unique result. You do not have to add all the extras that I have shown. Simply add to yours until you are happy with what you have. Just have fun with it.

Begin with the spider's web, using magic marker or paint. Start near the top of the pumpkin, making half circle lines (look at the top line of the spider's web in this photo and you can see the shape of these). You do not have to exactly match what I have done with this; it is just an example. Yours can be narrower or wider or uneven; most anything is going to work here so there is no need to strive for perfection; just do it and have fun with it.

Once you have the top row of web half circles made, continue with the next two rows of half circles for the rest of the web. Notice that each half circle begins somewhere near the center of a half circle of the row above it and ends somewhere near the center of the next half circle.

Possibly you noticed that this style of spider's web is not realistic to an actual spider web in nature. This make-believe web style is just for fun and it is quick and easy.

After the web is made, do the spider shapes. Start with a somewhat straight line coming down from one of the half circles of the web. At the end of the line, make a circle or oval for the spider body (any circle or oval shape is going to work; it will not even matter if it is lumpy or uneven). For legs, make a number of slightly curved lines coming out from the spider body. I made five legs on each spider but you could make more or less; whatever you like best.

Paint the pumpkin stem with shades of green, if you want to.

That completes the basic part of this easy spider painting pattern.

See the next photo for the next step, adding highlights.

Now you can add some highlights.

Using lines that are thinner than the lines you used to make the basic web, use a light color to draw or paint a highlight on just one side of each basic web line. On the web line above each spider and on the spiders themselves, I used white, keeping the highlights to the right-hand side of each line. On the spider legs, where the leg is horizontal, those highlights are under each leg (not above).

Keeping the highlights on just one side gives the effect of light shining in from one direction and reflecting.

On the spider web half circles above the spiders, I used yellow for the highlights, again making the light color highlight on just one side on the edge of each half circle of the web.

These highlighting lines do not have to be anywhere near perfect. Halloween is supposed to be spooky and scary. Scarily uneven lines will fit right in (after all, the headless horseman just rode by and the painter's hands were shaking with fright).

Adding more web in a different color can add some more interest to the overall design.

In this example, I added web in the color purple. As before, the web is made one half circle at a time.

I added some at the very top above the basic black web and some along one side in a blank area. You do not have to follow my placement example (unless you want to). Maybe you have different ideas. Add yours wherever you feel like it.

Now you can add some highlights to the color web you just made. Use a color lighter than the color that you used to make the web.

I used white in the example to do the highlights on the purple web that I had added.

As before, keep the highlights on just one side of each web half circle.

I also added black as an outline on the other edge of each web half circle (totally optional).

White dots are a nice way to add finishing touches to the design.

This photo shows how I made white dots along the web line above each spider and a dot below each spider leg.

When painting the dots, use the very tip of a thin round brush or dip the end of a round pencil eraser in the paint, then lightly touch this to the surface of the pumpkin to make each dot.

Or if you have been using magic marker to do this design on a pumpkin, be sure the colors you did previously are dry and then make the dots with magic marker.

One more idea for final touches, should you want to add them.

I made a few purple lines going up and down along the green stem. When that was dry, I added a few white dots along those purple lines (refer to the photo on the right).

I also added a white dot at each point where any end of a web half-circle touched another part of the web.

I chose to make dots in white but you might have another color preference for the dots. A light or bright color will show up best. Colors such as lime green or neon pink would be possibilities. You get the idea.

The framed spider on the right is clipart that I created myself. You may use it on another web page as long as you give a link back to this page from your page (in other words, let your web page readers know the source of the clipart and give them a way to come get it here and to read these terms for their own use of the clipart).

You may also add a comment on this page to let others know about the web page on which you use this spider clipart (put the url link of your page in the comment, so readers here can go take a look at it).