Step by Step Watercolor Christmas Wreath Tutorial (easy and fun!)
Let’s paint a lovely, festive Christmas wreath using watercolors!
This is the perfect art project for the holiday season, and the end result is a beautiful, Christmas-y wreath that’s a lot of fun to paint.
Watch the step by step video tutorial below:
If you prefer reading with pictures, keep scrolling!
By the way, if you’re looking for a quick and easy holiday wreath to paint on a card, check out this tutorial: Easy DIY Watercolor Christmas Wreath Card
Supplies list
The supplies you’ll need to paint this wreath are pretty much your basic watercolor supplies, but there a couple additional things you can use to make it more special.
(Some of these are affiliate links.)
- Watercolor paper – I used an 11×15″ sheet of Canson XL watercolor paper.
- Watercolor paint – you’ll need red, green, and brown colors at a minimum.
- Watercolor brushes – I used a Princeton Heritage round brush size 8 and a Princeton Select brush size 4.
- Pencil and something round to trace, like a plate or lid
- White and gold gel pens – optional, but it’s so fun to add details with these!
(For a full list of all the watercolor supplies I like to use, head over to my resources page.)
This wreath is so much fun to paint but is also simple enough to recreate.
So even if you’re fairly new to watercolor or have never painted a wreath before, I think you’ll love painting this one.
How to paint a watercolor Christmas wreath
Time needed: 30 minutes
Here’s how to paint this watercolor Christmas wreath step by step!
- Trace a round object.
Use a pencil to trace a round object that’s as big as you want your wreath to be. This will serve as a guide. Lightly erase the pencil so it’s not too dark.
- Paint branches.
Using a small paintbrush, paint sections of branches around the circle shape. This serves as placement for the leaves we’ll paint next.
- Paint leaves.
Paint leaves on the branches that you just painted. These can be simple, basic leaf shapes. I painted three on each branch.
- Paint pine branches.
Using a small paintbrush and a dark green color, paint pine branches in the remaining spaces. Start by painting a thin stem, and then add short, thin lines for needles branching out from it.
- Paint berry branches.
Still using a small brush, paint small branches for berries. Scatter them evenly around the wreath.
- Paint berries.
Add berries to the branches using whatever shade(s) of red you like best. To make them look less flat, vary the size, shape, and darkness of the berries.
- Add filler greenery.
Use a light green color to paint sprigs of greenery all around the wreath wherever there are gaps. This makes the wreath look more full. I painted these similar to how I paint pine branches.
Interested in more step by step watercolor tutorials that you can follow at your own pace? Check out the watercolor workshops available in my shop!
How to make a wreath look more special
You’ve painted a lovely wreath, but here are a couple details you can add to make it even more special!
For these techniques you’ll need white and gold pens or paint.
Add highlights
The first thing you can easily add to your wreath is highlights.
I used this white gel pen (affiliate link) to add a little line on just one side of each berry, following the rounded shape.
Adding highlights makes the berries much more eye-catching and sort of lifts them off the paper a bit.
You could also add highlights or white details to other elements of the wreath if you want to.
For example, it’s sometimes fun to add snow on the branches with a white pen or paint!
Add metallic accents
Another extra fun thing you can do is add gold or silver accents.
I again used a gel pen (affiliate link) to add a bit of metallic gold around the wreath I painted.
I outlined some of the branches with gold and then sprinkled gold dots around the entire wreath (because I love adding dots to everything!).
You can go crazy with the gold details or keep it minimal – it’s totally up to you.
The best part is turning your painting to the light and seeing that gold shine!
Wreaths are one of my favorite things to paint with watercolors, and making them festive with berries, pine branches, and snow is so much fun!
You can adapt this to fit a card, add some writing in the middle, or turn it into a Christmas gift.
I hope you enjoyed this Christmas wreath tutorial and have fun painting your own watercolor wreaths!
Save this tutorial for later ⬇️
