Take your inspiration from coloring books, tole painting patterns, or fabric designs in your home. Use a photo copier to enlarge or reduce your pattern to fit your pumpkin or gourd proportionately. You will want to choose a gourd or pumpkin that compliments your pattern. Look carefully at the shape of your gourd to see if you can turn it different directions to highlight the pattern. Maybe you will need to choose a gourd that is yellow, speckled or green to keep the natural color of the gourd as your background color.
Complex designs are the easiest to paint on smooth or flat pumpkins.
The pattern can be transfered by placing graphite paper between the pattern and the gourd with the graphite side facing away from your pattern. Carefully tape the pattern to your shape and trace the pattern with a pencil. You could also use a chop stick or dull toothpick to trace the pattern using pressure to leave a faint indentation in your pumpkin. This method works well for patterns that do not have a lot of detail. This will help prevent your paint from chipping off.