Watercolors for Beginners: Foliage + Greens
Gather Supplies
-water
-paper towel / rag
-2 circle stencils, 1 and 2 in- I use a mason jar lid and a quarter!
-Pencil
-watercolor paper
-brushes
-palette
-3 primary paints: madder/alizarin, cadmium yellow, indigo/prussian blue
1
Watercolor Warm Up
Draw Color wheel
Use your 2in stencil to draw your center circle first (gray).
Draw your 3 primary 2in circles, equally spaces around the center (magenta, yellow, blue).
With your 1in stencil, draw one circle in between your primary circles for the secondary (orange, green, purple).
Color mixing
Fill-in your Primaries, straight from the tube. Alizarin/Madder, Cadmium Yellow, and Indigo/Prussian Blue. Begin with yellow, match the diagram to the left. Mix enough water in with the paint that it is saturated and flows freely. Use a large brush, use a lot of juicy paint, and try to wet the entire circle quickly, so that it doesn’t begin to try as you’re filling it in. Fill in Magenta, then Blue.
2. Fill in your Secondaries. Choose a 1in circle to start with, then mix together the primaries next to the chosen circle, to create a secondary color. For example, if I choose my top right circle, I would mix yellow and orange to create orange. Mix yellow and blue to create green, then red and blue to create purple. Try to mix colors in equal amounts, aim for a hue right in-between the primary colors. You don’t want yellow-green or blue green, you want a true middle green.
3. Fill in your Neutral Gray, center circle. Mix together all 3 primary colors to create a neutral hue. If the neutral begins to tend towards a certain hue, add the color’s compliment. Complimentary colors are located straight across the color wheel from each other. For example, if my grey was tending red, I would add green to get closer to a neutral gray.
More about Mixing Greens…
Some green pigments simply can’t be recreated by mixing primaries. Some example swatches below:
Tube Greens, https://www.craftsy.com/post/green-watercolor/#
If you choose to use tube greens, consider toning them by adding a small bit of a neutral or complimentary pigment.
Modified Tube Greens, https://www.craftsy.com/post/green-watercolor/#
If you have multiple primary paints available, you can create a color mixing chart similar to the one below as a guide to the green for the job.
Color Mixing Chart, https://www.craftsy.com/post/green-watercolor/#
Wet Blending
-Use the large circles at the top of the page to practice blending colors.
-Begin by filling one entire circle with water. Then, fill your brush with paint and gently touch the tip of the brush to the wet circle. Watch the way the color spreads and creates ridges as it dries- this effect is called a bloom.
-Choose a cricle to experiment with the oppoite effect- fill the circle with a dark value of paint, and while it’s still wet, touch a brush full of water to the shape- watch the way the water pushes the pigment on the page outward from your brush.
Shadow Painting
These work great as background or filler greens
Marta Abbott, Hellebore Shadows, 2019
Marta Abbott, Rose Shadows 2019
“Shadow Painting” uses the silhouette of an object to create an abstract image. The colors inside the silhouette are exaggerated and expressive, capturing the energy of the plants more than the details.
This technique works great for background elements, the soft blends can look as if they’re far away and blurry.
Stroke and Leaf Shape
2/3
STROKE: LINE WEIGHT
Fill your brush with saturated, juicy paint.
Create a tapered line by dragging the brush across the page, first moving slowly and applying a lot of pressure, then gradually lightening up and moving faster. This will create a line that smoothly transitions from thick to thin.
Do this several times, focusing on keeping the transition smooth and steady. Our goal is to move from as thick as possible to as thin as possible.
Try varying the length of your line. Is it harder to make long or short tapered lines?
STROKE: MARK
Practice the shapes below with a round brush at least 10 times each.
Value and Painting From Life
2
2.TINTING: VALUE AND SATURATION
Draw a 3 lines of 1in circles. You may need a new sheet of paper for this exercise. The first line should have 5 circles, the next 6, and the next 7. We will be creating value scales from as dark as possible, lots of pigment little water, to as light as possible, lots of water little pigment.
Begin painting on the right side of the first line of 5. Use paint that is mostly water and a drop of pigment to get the lightest shade you can.
Add a drop more pigment and paint in the next circle, moving left. Keep in mind that we want the to evenly space out the jumps in value to create a gradual transition.
Continue left circle by circle, painting the leftmost as dark as possible.
Continue on to the next rows following the same steps. Each time a circle is added to the row, it will be more challenging to keep your value steps even.
1- Painting with Calligraphic Lines
Practice painting with only calligraphic lines.
-Keep you paint a dark, saturated value.
-Paint like you’re drawing with a marker-Be mindful of your line weight, pushing your brush into the paper to created wider lines in places that are in shadow or darker. Use smaller, thinner, lines for delicate details and soft edges
2 - Painting Wet on Wet
Practice paintingwith no lines, using the wet on wet blending technique
-Wet the paper one petal at a time to control which areas bleed into one another.
-Drop more paint in areas that are in shadow
-Create blooms in areas that are logical to your bloom-to blend colors and/or to mimic textures
3 - Combining Techniques
-Begin this step by repeating the wet on wet technique from exercise 2, making adjustments this time to fine tune the color and value placement.
-Next, asses your edges- where you aren’t happy with the edges created by painting wet on wet, or where detail needs to be added, add in some linework from exercise 1.
1 2 3 process with Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms
Above, see first 1:line only, then 2:wet blending only, then 3:a combination of the two.
If you’re painting after live class, feel free to use these photos:
Not quite greens, but here is a great demo about building glazes by Tracy Lewis.
Planning a Full Page Composition
Below are some examples of illustrators, both modern and historical, that take a creative approach in composing their natural science illustrations.
Kristina Spitzner, @redbriarstudio
This artist is mindful of each individual leaflet, creating distinct edges between them. She uses a diagonal composition to draw the eye across the work.
Anne Pratt
1850s
Pratt’s use of symmetry turns the repetitive shapes of this fern into a hypnotic image.
Shayla Johnson captures the essence of emotive blooms and berries in a loose, painterly style. She encourages drips, splatters, and color blending between forms. The result is energetic and elegant.
Monica Rohan, @monrohan
This artist frequently uses tiny linework to create rich patterns of plant life and textiles. The result is a surreal world that you just want to crawl into. The swirling patterns of these grasses remind me of marbled paper.
This artist is the master of smooth blends in his foliage and crisp, seamless edges between flat planes of color. He doesn’t include much linework but still captures depth.
Matthew Palladino, Two Skeletons, 30"x22", Watercolor on Paper, 2016
Same artist as above, but a very different composition. Graphic shapes of bold color hang in the background. Note the layering of leaf shapes, emphasized with high contrasting values.
RESOURCES
Learn more about Plant Identification:
Learn more about Watercolor Painting:
Greenery Tips:
Drawing and Painting Trees and Leaves from Botanical Art & Artist
Natural Color