How to Paint a Cherub
A cherub, also commonly referred to as an angel, is an image often found on paintings and artwork in churches and other religious centers. Resembling a young child, the cherub image was adopted into Christian iconology somewhere around A.D. 300, and continues to be popular in artistry work today. You can include the image of a cherub in a painting of your own, with some basic art supplies.
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Instructions
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Draw the outline of the cherub lightly with a pencil on a piece of art paper or canvas. For detailed images such as this, it helps to draw out a guideline for yourself before painting. Start by drawing a rounded face and a bob-length head of curls, along with a small child-size body if you want to include the full outline of a cherub. To finish the outline, sketch on two small, slightly roundish eyes, eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, and a small set of feathery wings coming from the back of the cherub.
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Dip a paintbrush into peach acrylic paint and paint over the face and body of the cherub, leaving only the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, wings and hair bare.
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Rinse your paintbrush and dip it into some yellow acrylic paint. Paint over the hair of the cherub, with a few ringlets of hair falling randomly around the cherub's head to make the curls more obvious. The majority of cherub images feature very curly hair, so you want to make this prominent in your painting. You can paint over some areas of the hair a few times to add depth and definition to the hair. Paint over the eyebrows with additional yellow paint.
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Rinse your paintbrush and dip it into the blue acrylic paint. Paint solid circles, one in the center of each eye, to create the iris of the eye.
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Rinse your paintbrush and dip it into the red acrylic paint. Paint a light circle shape on each cheek to add a glow to the face, and fill in the lips with additional red paint.
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Rinse your paintbrush and dip it into the white acrylic paint. Paint over the wings, repeating over the lines on the edges of the wings several times to increase the brightness of the white paint.
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Rinse your paintbrush and dip it into the black acrylic paint. Paint small solid circles, one in the center of each iris, to create the pupil of the eye. Finish the painting of the cherub by adding in small details with additional black paint -- a horizontal line across the center of the mouth, two small dots for nostrils on the nose, and small amounts directly underneath the bottoms of the wings and face for shadowing.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit paintbrush holder image by Du...¡an Zidar from Fotolia.com
