Easy Barn Painting – Paint a Winter Barn pt 4

This acrylic painting tutorial is part of the Winter Barn Painting Series. Today you get the easy barn painting portion. This easy, beginner-friendly painting lesson will show you how to paint a barn with dimension and how to mix the red to tone it.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking a link I may make a small commission at no added cost to you. Please see Disclosure page for details.

If you missed the previous lessons in this series here are the links to go back and paint along with:

Paint a Winter Barn Landscape 1, the Background

Paint Winter Trees, Lesson 2

Paint Winter Pine Trees, Lesson 3

The free printable pattern is available at the end of this post.

Note: you can use whatever colors you have that are similar

Easy Barn Painting Color Mix

Since I am using mostly the colors that come in this Plaid FolkArt paint kit and it does not have a barn red in it, I mixed up a color.

I chose to use Cardinal Red and toned it with a touch of Coffee Bean and Thicket. Sometimes I add just a tiny dot of Licorice to deepen the color for shading. (the video at the end of this post shows exactly how I do it)

Base Paint the Barn

Using the red color you mixed start painting the barn. I used the #10 flat brush but you can use whatever size is most comfy for you.

Stroke vertically as you paint. This can create the look of boards

Add Shading to Push Areas Back

After you have based the barn add a touch of Licorice to the Barn Red mix and paint the areas in shadow that push it further back to the eye.

The side parts of the barn are going away from us so we want it to look a bit darker. Paint the darker red on the sides up to the corner where it meets the front of the barn.

Be careful when adding Licorice to your mix as black is a powerful color and can easily overwhelm the red mix.

Paint the Barn Roof

Since our barn is covered with snow we will paint the roof Wicker White using the #10 flat brush.

This will take a couple of coats to be opaque. Paint the eave then come back to add another coat of white. Just take your time and enjoy.

Paint the Barn Eave

The eave of the barn on the right side is in shadow. Use Licorice Black and the #10 flat brush on the chisel edge to paint in this area.

Need help on terms for painting see this post: Basic Strokes for help!

By the time you finish the eave the white on the roof may be dry enough to recoat.

But before you do that go ahead and paint in the window. This is painted with Licorice and is basically the width of the #10 flat brush.

The left side of the barn needed a bit of shading to push it back as well. So use some of the darker red used on the right side to shade the left a touch.

In the video I started to add shading to the roof, it didn’t work for me and I will add more later so you can skip that part for now.

Need a better visual? Here is the video.

Next up…more of the Barn Painting

Have you missed any lessons of the Winter Barn Painting Tutorials? Find them all here!

For the free printable pattern to download sign in or sign up for a free account.

Please enjoy and share!