Hi everyone,
Leaves are crucial to botanical painting and can really let your painting down if you don’t
get them right.
But they can be intimidating because there is often SO much detail to try to capture
and it can be very difficult to paint a leaf so that you can see lots of detail - but also
keep the leaf looking real and solid.
So here I’ll show you how I go about doing just that.
I work from a photo I take myself and begin with a pale line drawing marking out the main
veins and some of the more prominent smaller ones.
I make sure I work larger than life so it’s easier to capture plenty of that detail.
I start my painting by applying a pale wash to try to match to the lightest vein colour.
We have to be cautious with this because with watercolour we never want to go TOO dark because
we won’t then be able to lighten again.
So I keep that mix really watery.
The colour in the main veins is more yellow then the colour of the smaller veins in the
rest of the leaf so I try to match to that.
When that layer is dry I go in with a smaller brush to begin the lengthy process of adding
some of the detail using the tip of the brush to create crisp lines.
I apply to the darkest tone areas first with a thick paint - making sure I leave gaps in
my paint for the veins.
This required close looking at the reference photo but is relaxing and fun once you get
into the flow of it.
As I’ve applied this dark paint I can already see that my lightest tone veins are too light
and will need to be taken darker.
So I change back to my slightly bigger brush and apply another layer of paint to the lightest
vein tones in the top part of the leaf I’ve not yet added detail to.
Once that’s dry I apply some of the darker details over that, again leaving gaps to create
the impression of veins.
Next I darken up the main veins by applying a thicker darker yellow green mix gently over
the top so it doesn’t disturb the paint underneath.
And I then use some milky consistency green paint to apply a gentle, smooth wash over
the whole of the bottom portion of the leaf, so that it darkens up the smaller veins there.
Once those lighter tones have been taken darker I can see that I need to darken the darkest
tones some more - and can use this stage to add more detail effects with my smaller brush,
again leaving gaps to create the impression of the smaller veins.
This detail is required but adding it again throws out our contrast levels and means that
the veins are standing out as too light - and the whole leaf looks disjointed.
So, this is the time I want to bring the leaf together.
And I do this by again going up a brush size and using a milky consistency wash to apply
over the now dry leaf - everywhere except for the lightest veins.
Then, yet again (yes, leaves DO take a long time), I break out my smallest brush and the
thicker dark paint and I continue to darken up my darkest tones and add detail.
There are so many tiny veins in our reference photo that I just try to give an impression
of them with the brush markings i make as you can see here as I work on some of the
lighter parts of the leaf.
Once I've painted the acorn, effectively darkening it, I can see I need to darken my leaf’s
darkest tones just a little more, again with my smallest brush and some thick paint.
And I’m done.
I hope you found this useful.
If you want more detailed instruction on how to paint this leaf and many others, it’s
available via my online school.