How I Made This Adorable Forrest Themed Growth Chart

I LOVE how this Forrest themed growth chart turned out! This is the second time I’ve done a mountain view in the background and this was even easier than the first time! All I needed was a pencil, a picture of mountains and a little imagination! Let’s get started!

Supplies I Used for my forrest Themed Growth Chart

1″ x 10″ x 72″ Pine Board, sanded and clean
Dixie Belle Paints: (from top of the forrest growth chart to bottom) Haint Blue, Cotton, Savannah Mist, Dusty Blue, Yankee Blue, Midnight Sky. I used Hurricane Gray mixed with Midnight Sky for the Forrest animals.
Dixie Belle Sealer in Flat
Sandpaper or sand block
Paint brushes: I used regular artist brushes, fan brush and my favorite large round watercolor brush.
acrylic ruler, pencil
Contact paper to make my stencils in my Silhouette Cameo 3

DESIGNING OUR FORREST GROWTH CHART

Grab a sharp pencil, maybe a picture of a mountain scene and lets get started!

I started towards the top, drawing a silhouette of mountains, and worked my way down the growth chart.

As I drew a jagged mountain shape, when I came down to the next level, my goal was to make sure the shape did not mimic the mountain shape above.

Also, as I worked my way down, the mountains shapes were getting spaced a little farther apart from the previously drawn mountains.

And yes, I used my eraser to go back and erase certain lines and add a hill there or adjust the hill elsewhere.

This is super forgiving!

Then I grabbed my favorite watercolor paint brush and start painting!

PAINTING THE FORREST GROWTH CHART

This is pretty much “painting within the lines”.

But much more forgiving, because I intentionally painted the lines here and there where I feel it may look best, or even when I messed up and just went over a little too far.

In the supply section, I listed the colors in order that I painted the background.

Haint Blue for the sky, Cotton for the top mountain tops and so on!

The last two rows were supposed to be more mountains but I decided to turn them into Evergreen trees with my fan brush.

Check out my short video below to see how I did this!

PAST GROWTH CHARTS

Each growth chart I do, is my favorite and this Forrest Growth Chart is no exception!

Technically, this growth chart would have looked great without the forrest animals too!

Just a thought!

For my first take on doing some free-hand painting, check out my Whimsy Growth Chart.

And my recent Woodland Growth Chart, click here!

Also, these blogs go into more detail on how I laid out the stencils for a long project and how I layer stencils to get a different look!

I hope you enjoy these examples and I hope I inspired you to create too!