Hi guys today we'll be looking at how to paint trees. I got a lot of requests to do a tutorial
on painting trees and foliage so i'm actually going to do two separate videos for them. I'll have
a video on how i paint foliage in the future. Today we're just going to be doing four studies of
trees and i'll just share with you some techniques that i use and my general approach to painting trees.
All the reference photos will also be linked down below in case you want to follow along and
the materials as well will also be linked down below. I'm just using an Etchr sketchbook and my
Himi gouache. So starting with the first reference photo, after i block in the background elements
then i move on to the trees and i usually start off with a base layer which is basically just
painting in the silhouette of the tree using a very dark paint. I usually use black mixed with a
little bit of yellow or black with a bit of green. I try not to use just pure black. Then i'll start
by painting in the tree trunks first just so i roughly know the positioning of all the trees
and then i'll go in and paint in all the tree branches and at this point i'm not worrying
about the lighting or shadow because i usually build up my trees in three to four layers and
this is only the first layer which is just like the silhouette of the trees. So that's all i focus on.
I have a few tips for how to make your trees look a bit more realistic or a bit more alive.
So one of them is try to vary the strokes of the branches. I generally paint in like a v
shape for these kinds of trees where the branches go down on one side and then up on the other side
and i vary them so that they're not perfectly symmetrical. I also vary the height of them
and vary the thickness of the branches. The tree should also be thinner around the top and wider
around the base so when i'm working i start off with really thin delicate strokes at the top of
the tree and as i work my way down my strokes get longer and thicker to build out the base of the trees.
Once i've got the silhouette in then i mix up a green that's just a little bit lighter than
what i used to paint in the base, so i just mix in a little bit more yellow. I avoid using white at
this stage because i find that the white makes the green a lot more pastel and i want it to have a
bit more life in the color so i just use yellow to brighten or lighten the mixture and then i go in
and i look at which side the light is coming from. So in this photo the light source is coming from
the left hand side which means the left hand side of the tree is going to be more in light and the
right hand side is more in shadow. So with this layer i go over the trees and i focus my brush
strokes more on the left hand side. I carve out the areas that i know are in light. When you're mixing
up that color that's a little bit lighter than the base layer you want to make sure that it's
not too light. Usually when i mix it up and i start painting on the trees it looks still very dark
but because in gouache dark colors dry lighter once i wait for it to dry i find that the green
is lighter than what i initially laid down. It's not very obvious in this video because it's
a little bit hard to tell from this angle but the color is a little bit lighter and i focus
the paint more on the left hand side. And because we're going with a third and fourth layer to
continue highlighting the trees, you don't want to start off with a second layer that's too bright.
So i see this step as carving out where the trees are because when we painted in the silhouette
because it was so dark and just one shade of dark green it all just melted into one another.
So with the second layer you can start to carve out where one tree ends and the next tree starts
and then i continue to add yellow into the mixture to make it brighter and i focus the highlights
more on the left hand side in this case where the light is hitting the trees so i avoid any
brushstrokes on the right hand side of the trees now because that side of the tree is in shadow
and i just work in layers and continue to bring out the highlights on these trees. Another tip for
making your trees look a bit more realistic is to try and vary the green a little bit so sometimes i
add in a bit more yellow sometimes i add in a bit more red to push a bit more towards olive green
and that just makes it look a bit more natural and a bit more interesting. So i talk a lot about light
and shadow in this video and if this is a topic that confuses you then a great place to learn more
about it is on Skillshare, who is the kind sponsor of today's video. Skillshare is a wonderful online
learning platform that has thousands of classes across a broad range of topics from illustration
to creative writing to photography and so much more and as a member you get unlimited access to
all of the classes on there. I started taking the class Painting Light and Shadow: The Basics for
Portraits and Characters by Gabrielle Brickey and so far the class has been really helpful. There is
so much to learn about lighting and shadows so it can seem overwhelming as a beginner but this
class really breaks it down and goes through all the different terms used like direct light
diffuse light local color etc and i find it really helpful for my understanding of light and shadow.
So i highly recommend this class and i can't wait to finish it as well. Skillshare is curated
specifically for learning meaning there are no ads and they're always launching new premium classes
so you can stay focused on learning and it's less than ten dollars a month with an annual
subscription. If you'd like to try out the class i mentioned or any of the other thousands of
classes they have on there i'll have a link down below where the first 1000 people to click the
link in the description will get a free trial of premium membership. For the second study we can
start by having a look at the reference photo and determining where the light source is coming from
so we know how to highlight our trees. So this one the sun is somewhere off to the right because you
can see some of the trees on the right hand side are being backlit so that already gives me an
idea as to how i want to highlight the trees and i follow the same steps of first just placing in
the tree trunks to get the positioning of the trees and again i'm using the same mixture of
just black and yellow to mix a really dark green that's almost black and i just look at the trees
and the shape of the tree and just try to mimic how it looks with my brush strokes.
I do my best to vary the brush strokes and keep them natural so i try to do quick strokes if i
can and in this one i try to have some random branches just sticking out here and there
just so they're not all the same length and it's not a very uniform looking set of trees.
This step can take a little bit of time even though it seems quite simple and straightforward, you're just
painting in the silhouette of the trees but to paint in each individual branch does take
some time. I quite enjoy this process though, I don't mind fleshing out all the little branches in there.
So each of these studies took me around 45 minutes to do and if you do want to follow along
and paint with me in real time i do have this over on my Patreon so feel free to check it out there.
After i finish the silhouette i mix in more yellow and i start to highlight the trees and i keep in
mind that the trees on the right hand side are a little bit more backlit and the ones on the left
are receiving light on the right hand side which is facing the light source
so with that in mind i go in and focus my highlights or focus the lighter strokes on
those sides and then i continued to lighten with more yellow and more red just to vary the green
a little and i only add in a little bit of white at the very end for some very bright highlights.
In this third study i'll show you another way that i like to paint in the leaves on
trees or foliage. I still start the same way by just blocking in a base layer and then i start
by placing in some of the darker trees or some of the silhouettes for the darker trees but once
i finish that then i switched to a round brush and i pinch the base of the round brush so that
it makes the hairs split apart. Now you might not want to do this on a brush that comes to a fine
tip because over time it could wear out the tip so maybe pick a brush that isn't too precious to you
or is an old brush where the hairs have already naturally started to split apart because this will
be great for creating the kind of texture that you see on trees and foliage as well. So once i've
got that brush ready then i just use a stippling motion to paint on the leaves and i like to use
this technique when i've got clusters of trees with lots of leaves and intricate details.
It's a faster way for me to cover an area rather than going in with a single brush and trying to paint
on each individual stroke. I still follow the same process of starting with the shadows and the darks
and then working my way up to the highlights. There's some more color in these trees so
i'm adding in more yellow ochre more warm yellow and just varying the colors in the trees.
My one didn't turn out quite as vibrant as the reference photo but i still like how it turned out.
Once i've built up quite a few layers then i'll go in and paint in the tree trunks and
the branches weaving through the leaves. I try to leave some gaps in between the branches just so
it looks like some of the leaves are covering some branches and then i can also go back in
and just paint some more leaves on top of the branches just so not all of the branches are
sitting on top of all the leaves. For the grass i also used an old brush to paint on grass like textures.
Old brushes can really come in handy when you want to create certain textures and only when
the hairs are split apart can you actually get those textures so i try to keep my old brushes
because they really come in handy when i'm trying to experiment with painting different textures.
For the final study i'm using the same technique as in the previous one where i split the hairs
of my brush by pinching the base of it and i use a stippling motion to paint on all of the cherry blossoms.
When it comes to trying to split apart the hairs on the brush you want to avoid
having too much moisture in it, so having too much paint or too much water on the brush because the
water will usually make the hairs come together so sometimes i have a paper towel and i use it to
take off some of the paint or the moisture on the brush so that way it just makes it a bit easier
for me to split the hairs apart. The rest of this study is quite straightforward i just pick
out the different colors i can see in the cherry blossom trees and i just use the stippling motion
to place them around and then i paint in the tree trunks and that's about it.
I hope you guys enjoyed this tree studies video. I've been meaning to make a lot more
of these gouache studies videos because i know a lot of you find them helpful and i've
read your suggestions and i've got more that i'd like to make so hopefully they will come
sometime in the future. In the meantime if you'd like more tutorials to follow along with or to
learn from i have them over on my Patreon. I actually have quite a few tutorials with
trees in them so if you want to practice painting trees you can check out the tutorials over there.
My goal with my Patreon is to build up a library of real-time gouache tutorials so whenever you
want some inspiration or you want someone to paint along with when you're practicing gouache
you can just find that whole library over there and i'll have my website linked down below where
you can explore the tutorials that are already on there. There's currently about 13 and every
month i add more tutorials and as a Patron you get access to all of the previous months
tutorials so this library will only grow larger over time. Thank you for watching this video and
if you have any questions just leave it down below otherwise i'll see you in my next video bye bye