One of the most popular decorations for the American Thanksgiving is the cornucopia, a horn-shaped basket filled with a selection of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and flowers. It is a symbol of an abundant harvest for which the Pilgrims were giving thanks during the first Thanksgiving. It’s also called a Horn of Plenty which is of course a direct translation of Cornucopia.
It’s nice to link it to a popular verse from the Bible which in full is “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” Psalms 100:4.
I’ve just used a few words from that lovely verse to give the gist of it but you could use more of the text and make more of the calligraphy too.
I thought it would be nice to paint one quickly which would be useful for invitations, gift tags or cards, and I did it in a pen and wash style. I also demonstrate in this video a technique for drawing the horn in which might be helpful when you draw yours. If you prefer, you can download my sketch from here.
There are lots more sketches all free on the page linked just above which you can put in your basket and download to print out and use to trace from to get the design of my tutorials.
I enjoyed this cornucopia very much and learned new techniques like shadowing and highlights (grapes, pumpkins & corn). Thank you again.
Hi Linda, thanks so much for commenting, and I’m so glad you enjoyed the painting and learnt something!