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[ Home: Watercolors: Painting Trees and Foliage in Watercolour ]
"Painting Trees and Foliage in Watercolour"
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Author: Marvin_Chew, Contributing Editor

3. COLOUR PALETTE

These are the colours that I often use to paint foliage, which, of course, is very much a matter of individual taste. You may want to experiment with different colours.

A. Colours straight from the tube
A1 - Lemon Yellow
A2 - Yellow Ochre
A3 - Vivid Green/Leaf Green
A4 - Sap Green
A5 - Cobalt Blue
A6 - French Ultramarine Blue
A7 - Indigo
A8 - Sepia

B. You may try mixing your own colours using two or more of the above colours.
B1 - Lemon yellow + Vivid Green
B2 - Lemon yellow + Vivid Green + Yellow Ochre
B3 - Lemon yellow + Vivid Green + Sap Green
B4 - Sap Green + Cobalt Blue
B5 - Sap Green + Cobalt Blue + Indigo
B6 - Sap Green + Indigo + Sepia

Note: I seldom use colours straight from the tube (A) but usually use my own mixed colours (B).


4. BRUSH STROKES

Now you are all set to paint. Using the right size brush is important. Here, I'm using a red sable brush (size 8 and 3). Depending on the dimensions of your painting, the bigger it is, the larger the brush you would probably want to use.

First of all, let me show you how I paint strokes that represent leaves. These strokes are influenced by Chinese Calligraphy which I learnt in school. The arrows indicates the directions of the strokes. It is not necessary to follow exactly the shapes as illustrated below. You should create your own shapes but vary the strokes by moving from left to right, top to bottom, etc.
5. PAINTING A TREE

Now I'm going to show you how I paint a tree.

First, use a mixture of lemon yellow and vivid green to paint the lightest area of the foliage (usually the top). You should mix a sufficient amount of this first mixture since you will be adding other colours to it in later steps. Notice the brush strokes in action. Remember to leave some white area as "sky holes".
The initial stages are often painted wet on wet. Mix some more vivid green into the previous mixture on your palette and paint the foliage while it is still wet, extending it to the right and downward.
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