30 DIY Easy Acrylic Canvas Painting Ideas

Hi everyone!

Let’s create some simple, yet beautiful acrylic canvas paintings!

I love painting! It’s a great way to relax and unwind. Plus, you get a beautiful piece of art work you can decorate your home with.

I created this blog post for anyone who wanted to get into the hobby of painting but didn’t know where to start.

I hope you can find inspiration from this collection of paintings and find one you want to try out yourself.

Give it a try! It doesn’t have to look exactly like mine because comparison is often the thief of joy.

Paint and have fun! Create colors and shapes that bring you joy. I hope this helps!


Materials for Acrylic Painting

  • Canvas
  • Acrylic paints
  • Paint brushes
  • Pencil (optional): Use a pencil to sketch your painting first
  • Cup of water: To wash your brushes between coats of paint
  • Paper towel: To dry off excess water from your brush
  • Palette or a shallow dish: To mix paints
  • Varnish (optional): Apply varnish to add a final protective layer to your painting

How to Start Your Acrylic Painting and Tips

  • Paint from the background to the foreground
  • To make the paint color more opaque, paint multiple layers
  • If you make a mistake, it’s okay! Painting is all about patience, accepting and having fun with the process of creating your painting!
  • Use the colors you like. If you want to make the sky pink instead of blue, go right ahead!
  • Feel free to make adjustments to the painting so it becomes something you can create (For instance, if you feel uncomfortable making the background a gradient, make it one solid color)
  • After you finish your painting, you can use a varnish of your choice to help protect your painting from dust and slow UV aging of the paint (This is optional but recommended!)
  • Enjoy your finished painting!

1. Pink Sky and Moon

This painting was inspired by a digital drawing I drew several years ago and posted on my Instagram. Although this time, I wanted to make the sky pink.

I used a mix of pink and a smidge of purple for the sky.

The clouds were painted with white with a hint of Naples Yellow.

The moon was drawn with a White Gelly Roll Pen.

pink sky clouds moon painting

I think it’s the perfect, dreamy painting to try out if you are a beginner at painting!


2. Sunset

Blending paint is the key to creating a beautiful sunset painting.

Make sure to clean your brush between different colors to avoid a muddy looking color.

And it’s okay if it doesn’t look perfect on the first go. It usually takes multiple layers to get an opaque color.

sunset easy painting

3. Rubber Duck

I was inspired by my rubber duck drawing I drew for this blog post (#19), and decided to make it into a painting!

I first sketched out the rubber duck onto the canvas, then painted the drawing!

Here is how it turned out. It’s such an adorable painting idea!

rubber duck painting

4. Peach

Here is a simple painting idea of a peach to try out 🙂

peach acrylic painting

5. Seascape

Let’s paint a seascape with a little harbor town in view.

seascape painting sky

6. Bear

Let’s paint a bear’s face next using a mini canvas!

The tutorial for this painting can be found here in this blog post for anyone interested.

bear face painting easy

7. Planets

This painting was one of the paintings I created for my Outer Space Painting Ideas blog post.

First, you want to start by creating the background: I used Prussian Blue and flicked white paint from my brush to create the stars.

Afterwards, paint the planets using whatever colors you like!

outer space planets painting

8. Hearts

Let’s paint two hearts with a ring around it!

hearts planets painting

9. Winter Forest

I wanted to create a landscape painting with snow so here is how that painting turned out!

Snow-covered trees can look a difficult to paint so here’s a basic outline on how to paint it: Use a dark green to paint the basic outline of your tree. Then, use white paint and add it to the ends of the branches.

winter landscape trees painting

10. Flowery Hills

Let’s paint some flowery hills.

Paint the hills pink (or whatever base color you like) and add little flowers by dabbing using a small detail brush.

Use different colors (I used light pink, yellow, and white) to create a bunch of different flowers.

flower hills canvas painting

11. Frog

Here is an adorable painting idea of a frog emerging out of the water.

You can find a step-by-step tutorial of this painting in this blog post DIY Easy Frog Painting.

cute easy frog painting

12. Mountain and Cherry Blossoms

Let’s paint a bunch of cherry blossoms at the foot of a mountain next!

mountain cherry blossom painting mini canvas painting

13. Pattern

Paint a pattern on your canvas!

To create this pattern, I drew some wavy lines crisscrossing. I then painted within the lines.

blue yellow pattern

14. Turtle

To create this painting, I first drew the turtle and the bubbles onto the canvas using a pencil.

Then, I painted within the lines.

turtle bubbles painting canvas

15. Powerlines

Let’s paint another sunset with some powerlines and the “heart” sun and moon in view.

With this painting, I first painted the gradient background. Then, the clouds. Then I added the powerlines, moon, and sun. The sun was painted. The moon was drawn with a white Gelly roll pen and I used a Micron pen for the powerlines.

powerlines sunset painting

16. Blue Butterflies

Butterflies can be a little tricky to draw and paint, so I tried to keep it simple.

I recommend drawing your butterflies on the canvas first. Then you can color it in with paint.

blue butterfly painting

17. Bow

I drew a bow onto the canvas and painted it 🙂

ribbon easy painting

18. Heart Flame Candle

Let’s paint a candle with a heart-shaped flame next!

heart candle painting

19. Capybara

I wanted to paint a capybara so here it is!

I keep painting animals in the water haha

capybara orange painting

20. Street Light

I absolutely love how this street light painting turned out with a heart-shaped cloud beneath the light.

I sketched out the painting first onto the canvas. Then painted it. I added the stars using a white pen but everything else is painted.

street light heart clouds painting

21. Strawberry

I love strawberries so here is a very simple painting of one that anyone can try!

easy strawberry painting

22. Sailboat

Here is a simple and serene painting of a sailboat to try!

simple sailboat painting

23. Rainbow

I love seeing rainbows so let’s paint one today!

rainbow painting

24. Puddle

This painting was inspired by one of my past drawings from the blog post 35 Whimsical Drawing Ideas (#33).

puzzle painting shoes moon

25. Car

Here is an easy painting idea of a car beneath a sunset sky.

car sunset painting

26. Cake

I love cake so let’s paint a slice of one.

cake painting

27. Crystal Ball

Here is a simple painting idea of a crystal ball to try out.

crystal ball painting

28. Whale Tail

This painting was inspired by one of my past drawings from my blog post 30 Aesthetic Drawing Ideas (#26).

whale tail clouds painting

29. Tulip Flower

I realized I didn’t paint much flowers (surprisingly!) in this blog post so I decided to paint a tulip next!

tulip flower painting

30. Campsite

Here is a beautiful painting of a tent beneath the night sky.

I also drew a heart-shaped cloud of smoke coming from the campfire. I wonder how the cloud would have looked if I made it puffier lol

camping tent painting outdoors

Related Blog Posts:
30 Easy Acrylic Painting Ideas
50 Cute Easy Things to Draw
31 Easy Watercolor Art Ideas


Thank you so much for stopping by this blog post!

I hope you enjoyed this list of easy and fun acrylic canvas paintings to try out.

Let me know in the comment section which one you liked best! (It takes a while for the comment to show up because I have to manually approve each comment)

Also, let me know if you’d like a tutorial for any of these paintings in the future! I created a majority of these on a whim so they weren’t planned out.

I am wishing you all a wonderful day or night, and until next time!

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