Paint your own watercolor leaf wreath!

Start with a few minutes of leaf-painting practice on a scrap piece of paper so you can get used to the technique and work out any kinks before working on your final project. Make sure to try out leaves of different sizes, shapes, and directions so you have variety on your wreath!

Once you feel you’ve gotten the hang of it, find some source imagery for inspiration (Audrey has a whole Pinterest board of wreaths you can browse), mix up your colors, and draw a light circle with pencil on your page.

Then you can get to paining your wreath! You’ll want to work from your lightest to darkest color to get that layering effect, and make sure to wait for your leaves to dry before painting on top of them, unless you want the colors to blend together. Follow your intuition and let yourself make some beautiful mistakes as you create your masterpiece.

When you’re done, make sure to share your work in the project gallery!

Want to dive deeper into watercolor wreaths? Check out Audrey’s longer class on painting floral wreaths.

Materials

Watercolor paper: Since this is a practice exercise, the brand doesn’t matter so much, but Audrey recommends around 140 lb paper.

Watercolor paints: Audrey is using the Lukas brand pan set, but you can use whatever you prefer!

Brushes: Audrey recommends having two round brushes for this project, one larger and one smaller brush to create different sized leaves. She’s using a #2 and a #6 from Creative Mark.

Jar of water

Paper towel or rag

Resources

Connect with Audrey on Instagram and on her website.
Find more leaf wreath inspiration on Audrey’s Pinterest board.
Check out Audrey’s other classes on her Skillshare profile.

Explore More Classes on Skillshare

Watercolor in the Woods: A Beginner's Guide to Painting the Natural World — Rosalie Haizlett
Loose Watercolor Leaves - Fun and Easy Way to Paint a Botanical Frame — Ana Victoria Calderón
Modern Watercolor Techniques: Explore Skills to Create On-Trend Paintings — Cat Coquillette

Courtney Shanklin

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