Winter Rock Painting Ideas

Here’s a collection of awesome rock painting ideas for winter! Rock painting is one of our favorite hobbies. It’s just so relaxing, and there are so many creative things to do with rocks! Once the Christmas decorations are down, there’s a lot of winter left before spring arrives. Brighten up a winter day with these fun painted rock designs!

There are 5 different designs to paint: a snowman, snowflake, mitten, penguin, and a snowy scene with pine trees.

These winter rock painting ideas are great for beginners, and there are instructions below.

Also, we have LOTS of rock painting ideas on this site, so check the bottom of the post for links to all our other projects!

This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means that I will earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.

Supplies Needed for Rock Painting

• Rocks – see notes below
• Pencil – for sketching designs
• Acrylic paint and brushes
• Paint pens – we use Sharpie oil based paint pens, but there are all kinds of acrylic paint pen options now too.
• Spray-on polyurethane, to seal the paint

Unfortunately, we don’t live in an area that has good rocks for collecting. Lots of sandstone and limestone here, and it’s difficult to find smooth rocks with a good painting surface. I usually use Caribbean beach pebbles from the Home Depot garden center, but the last bag I purchased there was sort of a disappointment. The rocks were very chalky and had a lot of holes and pits in them. So this time, I decided to order rocks from Amazon. Seemed sort of silly to be buying rocks online, but wow – they are really nice rocks!

I bought these rocks from Basalt Canvas in the small size. I also bought a bag of the medium rocks, and they are quite big. Not sure what I will use those for, but I’m sure we’ll think of something! Maybe garden markers in the spring.

It’s always best to sketch the design with a pencil first. For the penguin, I drew the outline of the face and painted that section white. Then I drew the eyes and beak.

It’s always easier to paint the light colors first. If you accidentally overlap with the dark color, no one will know. But if you’re painting the light color second, it’s more difficult to make it look neat.

Snowflakes rocks are fun to paint! First, paint the entire rock with the blue of your choice. Let it dry completely and draw the snowflake design with pencil, and then with paint marker.

I painted the mitten rocks with a coat of white paint, and then drew the mitten designs with paint markers. You can see the steps below.

Another fun idea is to paint a winter scene with snowy pine trees. It’s not difficult, even for kids. Paint the sky and ground first, and let them dry. Then paint the tree trunks and let them dry.

Paint the needles on the tree by dabbing the tip of a brush on the trunks. Use a paint brush that has squared-off bristles. It also helps if the bristles are a little more stiff, not soft like a watercolor brush. Use the same technique to paint snow on the tree. Be sure to let the green paint dry completely before adding the snow.

The snowman rock is easy to do. Start by painting the white body. Then add the hat and other details. I used a brush for the entire thing, but paint pens would work very well for the face, scarf, and arms.

Have fun with rock painting!

We love painted rocks and have lots more ideas that you’ll want to check out. See the links below.

This post has 25 Rock Painting Ideas – a great place to start for beginners.

These Mix-and-Match Snowman Painted Rocks are a lot of fun for winter. It’s fun to change them around to create different snowmen!

These Doodle Rocks are another of my favorite projects.

Kids will have fun turning their favorite LEGO guys into LEGO Minifigure Painted Rocks!

One of our top searched rock painting projects is these Owl Painted Rocks.

Another top favorite is our Star Wars Painted Rocks. There are 9 different designs to paint!