I am going to teach you how to do a buddha acrylic painting on canvas with step-by-step instructions.

I will be using

* Lemon yellow,

* Scarlet lake,

* Prussian blue,

* Cobalt blue along with

* Black and

* White

For the brushes, I will be using size 16 and 4 filbert and size 4 and 1 round brush.

First, let’s start with the background for the buddha acrylic painting. I am using only the primary colours for the background. Scarlet lake, Prussian blue and lemon yellow are the colours I am using here.

I use a filbert brush of size 16 to finish the background. You could also use a flat brush to do this. Don’t mix the colours too much. At the same time, you can allow it to blend at the edges where each of them meets. As you can see I am only using vertical brush strokes to achieve the result I need.

Allow this layer to dry completely before going to the next step. My layer was pretty thick, and it took around 35-40 minutes to completely dry. Actually, there should not be any kind of stickiness on the surface.

Here is the buddha drawing that we will be doing today. I have drawn it on paper so that I can share this image with you. Please right-click on the below image and choose the "Save" option to save it.

You can also directly draw this on the canvas or trace it onto your canvas. For tracing you could use a white or yellow carbon sheet. Preferably white is better.  Just place the carbon sheet in between the picture and the canvas. Use masking tape, to secure it in place and then start tracing it. If you have seen my other videos, you would probably by now know that I love to draw, so I am going to use my white charcoal pencil to do a rough sketch of the buddha on my canvas.

The next step is to do the outline with a brush using black. It doesn’t matter if you have traced or drawn, just outline it with black. I use a size 4 round brush to outline. This helps you to have the edges in place.

Buddha paintings mostly show buddha in a calm, relaxed and meditative posture. So having a buddha painting at home or in your office can make the environment more positive. And just seeing the painting alone can reduce your stress and brings you peace. So do try this painting and own one for yourself!

For the buddha, I am using cobalt blue along with white and black. So the next step is to add just black and blue to start filling the buddha. I will be working from dark to light.

As the first layer, I am applying black near the outline and blue in the area inside that. To give a harmonious look to the painting I am going to use 2 methods here. The first is to use the same vertical brush strokes as we did for the background.  I am going to use this method to fill the buddha. The second method is where I leave some parts of the background to reflect on the face. Both of these will help you to have the unified look on the painting. Fill the head portion with complete black. Similarly, the corners of the nose and the eyes are going to be darker.

I have also done another buddha acrylic painting on canvas. That is entirely a different style from this current painting. You can check it out here - https://youtu.be/poqb6fXRPJ4

For the next layer, I am bringing in a combination of white and blue to lighten the required areas. Starting with the cheeks, go over the other areas to be highlighted.

For the head, I start doing smaller spirals. Make sure the spirals are smaller at the sides and as it comes to the front keep it a little larger. This gives depth to the head area. I am using only blue and white for all of the spirals. A quick tip here is not to premix blue and white. Instead mix it as you go, so that you can get a lot of variations. This area might take some more time to finish. So be patient with yourself and do it one by one. Use the same method to finish the top portion of the head as well.

The next step is to add highlights to the spirals. Mix a lighter mixture of blue and white. Use this to highlight the spirals at the centre of the head. The same colour can be used to highlight areas of the face too.

Here’s the completed picture of the buddha acrylic painting on canvas.

Watch the below video to see the step-by-step instructions for creating the Buddha acrylic painting.

I have also done another buddha acrylic painting on canvas. That is entirely a different style from this current painting. You can check it out here...