Build Confidence With Your Brush Strokes: Basic Leaf Shapes With Watercolors

1. Introduction: And Hi, everyone. My name is Nia, and today, I'll be taking you through this class where we'll be painting some beginner friendly leaves with simple basic watercolor techniques. Leaves are one of those things that I go to when I don't know what else to paint. It's a great subject to doodle and fill your sketchbook with because with only some simple repetitive shapes, and just by changing small things like size and positioning, you can create something beautiful on your sketchbook or on any paper you have. After this introduction, I will take you through the supplies that I'm going to be using for this whole class. But before we start painting the final composition, I'm also going to go through some warm ups or you can also treat it as exercises where we can build confidence little by little in order to prepare ourselves to paint the final composition. And these are just small things like applying pressure to your brush and learning about different brush strokes to create different types of leaves. Also, understanding different brushes as well. This class is made so anyone can follow along to it, including if you're new to watercolors, then on the final composition, I'm also going to have 12 different types of leaves laid out very simply. However, if you're feeling inspired or you have any other ideas on top of the leaves that I've shared with you in this class, feel free to add it on or swap any of the leaves with your own ideas. So the project is very flexible. You can interpret it however you'd like. I will be freehand painting throughout this whole class. However, if you're new to watercolors, I understand that this can be quite nerve wracking. Depending on my mood, I can still be quite intimidated by it sometimes too. So if this sounds like you, I will have the outline available for you to download in the projects and resources section of this class in case anyone needs it. Whether you're a beginner painter, looking for some simple exercises for you to do to build confidence or if you're an intermediate to advanced painter, looking for something simple to paint and just a quick project to fill your sketchbook with and to relax too, you are all welcome to take this class. Just a heads up if you're new to my classes on Skillshare, though this class is mostly done in real time, I'll still be making some small cuts if my hand is either inactive or off the camera. Sometimes I'm waiting for things to dry or I'm just taking my time thinking through the steps. So if you decide to paint side by side along with me, feel free to pause in between each step. This way, you can repeat any of the exercises as many times as you would like, and you can also paint and learn according to your own pace. And if this sounds like something you'd be interested in trying, come join me in this class, and let's get on to the next lesson. 2. Supplies: Now, let's go over the splies that I'll be using. Firstly, these are the three brushes that I'm going to use for all of the leaves. We have the round brush. This one is by Princeton velvet touch, and it's a size five. You can also use any round synthetic brush that you have on hand. And this is Filbert brush. This is also a cheap synthetic brush by Georgorn and this one is a size four. You can see that the tip is rounded, which is perfect for leaves with rounded tips, and you can see the difference between this one and the round brush, which has a pointy tip. As for the smaller details like the veins and the mid rib, as well as the stems of the leaves, I'm going to be using this size zero brush. This one is by Windsor Newton, and this is a scepter gold too, but you can also use a sizzerosynthetic rum brush, as well. Anything that's small, so it's easier to control. Here, I have two extra brushes. I'm not going to use these. I'm going to show you a comparison between the size brush and a liner brush as well as the Decker striper, which is actually my favorite brush to use for small details. They are a little bit more tricky to paint with, but I just want to share a bit of extra information in case you want to experiment with these different brushes. But for the final painting, I'll only be using these three. For the paper, I'm going to be using this sketchbook that I made. This sketchbook that I made is a mixture between hot press and a little bit of cold press paper. For these paintings or for beginners, I always recommend for you to use cold press first just because I find that it's a bit easier to control. You can also use hot press, but if you're not used to it, sometimes you might create unwanted blooms. And you'll see that this one is a bit different because this isn't the final painting as a trial that I did beforehand, so don't worry about that. I'll also be using some scrap paper just to swatch my colors as well as to draw out the sketch before painting all the lease freehand. For the swatch, you can see this is a different type of paper. This is just a cheap Canson XL, but I would highly, highly recommend when you're swatching your colors to use a scrap paper of the same brand. Sadly, I didn't have any archs scrap paper with me, so I just use CansNXl which is a very different type of paper. Arches is 100% cotton, whereas CansNXL is cellulose. So the paint will behave differently, but generally different brands takes the paint differently as well. So for this 11 I'm using as a consistency, the color doesn't come out as vibrant on the Canson XL compared to arches. However, I'm very used to using both papers, so I know the way it's going to react differently. You don't have to use the exact same brand of paper that I'm using. But please if you're a beginner, I would highly, highly recommend for you to use the exact same brand for your scrap paper as you're swatching and your final painting. Next, this is the palette that I'll be using. This is just a cheap plastic palette that I got from Diso. And you can see I've used this so much that the palette was originally white, and now it's yellowing. But because I've used it so much, I've created some my crow scratches. So my paint doesn't beat up, whereas this is usually an issue when you're using plastic palettes. And if beating is an issue for you and it's hard for you to control the load on your brush because of this, you can also use porcelain palettes, but I would recommend for you to use a light color, something like white preferably, so it's a bit easier to see the colors that you're mixing. I'm just very accustomed and used to using this palette since I've had this for many, many years. I'm only going to use this limited color palette for the final painting. This is key to creating a consistent tonality of colors for your painting. But I will go over the specific brands and name of the colors at the end of this lesson. You will also need a glass jar. I'm only going to be using one, but you can also use two jars of water. One is for dirty water to clean your brush and the other one to reload your paint. But personally, I just like using one and if the water gets too dirty, I will just change it out, it's completely up to you which system you want to choose. This is very important, but I always have tissue or paper towel right next to me as I paint. This is key to controlling the load on your brush. If your brush is a bit too heavy with paint, you can always take off the excess. You can see how much I use it here. I personally would not paint if I don't have tissue right next to me. This is as important as any other supplies here. For the sketching section, I'm going to use an eraser and pencil. My eraser is by Boxy, and my pencil is bipentl Sharplet. I like to use HB or to be hardness. And finally, this is optional, but I find it very useful. I like to always have a hair dryer right next to me is just an ordinary hair dryer, just to make the drying process much quicker. Now as for the colors, and the first one here is Indigo by Schminke sub green by Holbein, permanent yellow deep BHbine, CPA by Holbein, and Vermilion Bholbin. And here are the list of supplies in case you want to get things ready, you can take a screenshot of this or download it in the projects and resources section. 3. Brushes: Before we start to draw our paint, let me just introduce you to the brushes that I'm going to use. The first one is the round brush. This is probably the most versatile brush, in my opinion. This is the type of brush that I first use when I started watercolors. And even though I'm going to use a flip brush for some of the leaves for the final painting, I'm going to show you an alternative way of painting it with a round brush. You can see it has a round barrel and a point tip, but minus just a little bit frayed. Now let's move on to the second brush. I'm going to be using my Filbert brush, and as you can see, this one is different. It has a flat barrel and the tip is also rounded. The front and back is thick and sides are thin. And for this brush, it's great to create rounded edges like rounded tip leaves or rounded flower petals. So these are the two brushes that I'm going to use for the leaves and for the stems, as well as the little details like the mid ribs and veins of the leaves. I'm going to use this small size zero brush just because I feel like this is the most available for people in my opinion. This is what I started out with. This is a size zero round brush. You can see that the bristles are so thin, which means it doesn't hold much water, which makes it easier to control if you're a beginner. But I'm also going to show you a comparison with other brushes that I like to paint little details for the other brushes, this is a liner brush. You can see the bristles are longer, so it holds more water. The third one here is a dagger brush. This one is a dagger striper brush. You can see how thin the tip is, but the barrel is flat like the filber brush, but because it has more bristles, it holds even more water, and I feel like you can create such fine details. This one is actually my favorite to use when I'm painting tiny details. So just for the sake of availability, I'm going to use my size zero round brush, but I just want to show you a comparison in case you want to experiment if you have access to these brushes or you want to expand your watercolor collection. 4. Long Basic Brush Strokes: In this lesson, I'm going to show you some basic brush strokes using this round brush, and we are also going to practice a bit of brush pressure so we can get used to the shape of the brush and also paint more efficiently. You can basically treat this as either exercise if you're new to watercolors or a warm up for those of you who just wants to relax to this class. So firstly, I just want to lightly wet my brush. And for the color, I'm only going to use one for this part of the class. This is just sap green. You can use any hue that you have. My round brush here is quite old, and you can see it's frayed because this is the most used brush I have. So when I paint the leaves later, the tip of the leaves as well as the bottom point won't be as sharp compared to those of you who are using a brand new brush or a brush that still comes to a really fine point. But either way, I'm just going to show you this fray brush. You can see I'm pointing the pointy part upwards, which will be the tip of my leaf. As I move down, I slowly take off the pressure until I reach the tip of my brush for the bottom of the leaf. As you're doing this, you want to also be mindful of the load your brush. This, I would say, is a good load, but if you feel like you have too much paint, you can always take off the excess with tissue. I'd say I've taken too much out. Let's see what the leaf would look like if I don't have enough water and paint. I'm going to follow the same pressure. You can already see the tip isn't touching the paper. And you can see the edges are a bit rough. It has a dry brush texture. Now, let's add a bit more water and paint. The bristles will open up more if we have more paint and it'll distribute the bristles a little bit wider. The thing is depending on the size of leaf you're painting, the brush load will also be a bit different. So this is a good time to practice and get to know the correlation between these two variables. You can try to repeat painting the same thing over and over again until you're used to the brush pressure and the movement. Then you can also practice painting different sizes. Now let's paint slightly larger leaves. I've used a heavier load here, and this time, you can see I'm directing my brush to the side slightly as I'm putting pressure on it. Let's try to do it again. You can see my brush is at an angle this time, and because there's more surface area on the side of my brush, you can create slightly thicker leaves. Again, you can also see the paint flows better because I'm using a heavier load. I've also added more pigment. Now let's try to reverse this painting from the bottom upwards, so we can get used to different angles. So with these brush strokes, I just want to mention that this is not really necessary to paint the leaves in single strokes, but it does make it a little bit more efficient. And the more you're used to using your brush with different pressures, hopefully you can also build on the accuracy as you're painting. So this exercise is just to get you a little bit more flexible with your brush, which, in turn, hopefully you'll feel a bit more comfortable with using different pressures and the tip or the side of your bristles. You can repeat these brush strokes as many times as you would like. So I'm just going to repeat what I painted earlier, starting from the vertical brush strokes, which I feel is the simplest. Again, you can do this as many times as you would like, but just get this lesson going. I'm going to move on to the next one, which is to use the side of my bristles. It's actually very satisfying and therapeutic to do this. Enjoy your time painting it slowly or quickly depending on what is comfortable for you. I'm going to do a straight vertical one, starting from the bottom up now. Then after this, I'm going to go from the bottom up but with the side of my bristles. And let's create the same strokes, but much smaller in order to create tinier leaves. So this time, we have to use a much lighter brush load because the subject that we're painting are going to be very tiny. So this is too wet. As you can see, the brush is glistening, and this time I'm only going to use a little bit of pressure using the tip of my brush instead of putting pressure on the whole length of the bristles. And again, you can repeat this as many times as you would like. After a few of these leaves, I haven't reloaded my brush because we only need a little bit of paint and water for these tiny little leaves. Okay. Next, I'm going to try to apply the pressure sideways, just like before. Then after this, we're going to repeat the same ones, but from the bottom up this time. Here I use the side of my brush, but you can straighten it up and try to paint it in different angles as well. Note that the paint will puddle wherever I take off my brush last. Here since I've taken off my paint brush at the top, the top part is darker because that's where all the paint will be. But if you want more of an even coverage or even a darker bottom, you can help move the wet paint with your brush. 5. Curves and Frills: In this lesson, we're going to create some frilly leaves by using the same pressure in the previous lesson. But this time we're going to add some zig zagging motion to get some frilly edges. I'm going to paint it vertically like before, and as I press down, I did the zigzagging movement. Then as I get to the bottom, I'm going to take off the pressure. I'm going to repeat this a few times. You can do this as many times as you'd like. And I'm going to try to do the same thing, but from the bottom up. Okay. This time, I'm going to start at the bottom. You can see how I'm directing the tip of my brush in the beginning, putting a bit more pressure in the middle, then taking off the pressure at the top. Depending on how much movement you give, how wide the zigzags are, it will determine the shape of the edges. But if you don't like certain edges, you can also clean it out with your brush while the surface is still damp. By adding extra movement to the frills, I feel like this adds more character to the leaves and it makes them look more organic this way. Another way to make this look less stiff is also to add curves to the leaves. You can do this with the same type of pressure, but you can just direct it sideways instead. You can also do this without the frills first, but for this one, I'm just going to add this zigzag motion. Depending on how heavy your brush load is or even depending on the size of your brush, you can really pull this out a little bit further to create even longer looking leaves, and these types of leaves usually pairs well with larger flowers like tulips. As an example, I'm just going to paint a really rough one here. It's also green, but this is just to show you an example of how they can look together. You can also practice this without the frills if you want and repeat the strokes as many times as you would like. And just for some extra exercise, you can also try to do it sideways while doing the zigzagging motion or any other angles. You can also play with the pressure while creating a line to get used to how snappy or maybe not so snappy your bristles are. 6. Multiple Strokes: Now that we're more used to applying brush pressure, we can try to apply the same type of pressure but use more strokes. This is great for painting wider leaves. We're just going to start with two strokes. We're going to still apply the same pressure so we don't have to do too many little strokes in order to create a single leaf. We're doing two strokes, I'm just going to create a comma shape on the left and on the right. You can see this leaf is a different shape to what we've painted earlier in the previous lessons. It's much more wider, and this way, I feel like you can control the shape a little bit more by having the flexibility of using more brush strokes. But we're still painting quite efficiently. Now I'm going to do more strokes, but apply the same type of brush pressure. Now that you've combined both the pressure and the brush strokes, painting will become much faster, more efficient and more flexible when it comes to the shape you're trying to make. This is not to make your movements more rigid in terms of thinking less amount of strokes is better. It's not really 100% necessary. These exercises is just to create overall flexibility with your brush a little bit more so you can take advantage of your movements, but still having the freedom to move around as you please at this time with the confidence as well. Now, let's try something else. I'm going to leave a little white sliver at the center of the leaf. This is good practice for accuracy as you paint. Again, just repeat the shapes as many times as you please. You can even paint smaller ones to feel the difference of your brush pressure only using the tip this time and, of course, less brush load. And you can also try to play with different angles as well. 7. Novelty Shapes: In the previous lessons, I've shown you typical leaf shapes, I would say, but there are also novelty leaf shapes like maple leaves and such, which is a combination of leaves that we've painted so far grouped differently. By mastering the basic leaf shapes, you can try different combinations and group them differently for other leaf types. Let's start with a very basic maple leaf, which is basically five leaf shapes in different sizes and 8. Filbert Brush Strokes: Now we're going to try the Filbert brush. Again, this is optional. You don't need the Filbert brush, but I just want to show you the difference. We're going to paint on the flat side first. You can see because it has a rounded tip, it creates a perfectly round tip for the leaves straightaway. We get to the bottom though, because this is a white flat brush. Instead of just taking off pressure, sometimes I like to rotate my brush slowly until I reach the thin side of my brush. This is what the movement looks like. You can either go to the left or the right, but personally, I find rotating it to the right is a little bit easier. And just repeat this as many times as you would like. Then you can also try to do this from the bottom up, can also create a slight curve. And if any of the ends is a little bit wonky, you can always fix the sides. You can also paint some whiter leaves using a few strokes. Like so. Now let's try to use the thin side. I personally like to paint tiny little round leaves with it's actually my favorite way to use it. I like to paint ferns. So with this, we're just going to play with the pressure, and I like to do somewhat of a quick flicking motion, so the bottom tip can be a little bit smaller and sharper. Then I'm just going to connect them all together using my Sisi brush. You can, of course, paint smaller leaves using the flat side, but it does take a bit more accuracy and a much lighter pressure. This is why I like to use the thin part of my Filbert brush instead. You can also try to paint a longer leaves using the sides. In general, any round leaves would be really nice to paint with this brush. I don't have to paint an outline first because the tip is not pointy. And you can also group tiny leaves together in order to create something like this. This works well with any type of leaf with rounded tips, just like the oak before. When you're painting round leaves, you can also add some jagged edges. So even though the overall silhouette is round, you'll have something that has a bit more character and a little bit more texture around the sides. And you can also paint it unevenly, like so. And I feel that the slight bit of imperfection makes them look a bit more organic. 9. Thin Details - Comparing Brushes: And Now I'm going to move on to the thin brushes. Since I feel like this is the most widely available brush, I'm going to be using the size zero brush for the final painting later as I paint the stems and also the details of the leaves. This brush doesn't really have many bristles. As you can see, it's very small and thin. Even if you're using a heavier load, you're still able to create quite thin lines, even though it's preferable to always paint either with a medium brush load to a light brush load when it comes to painting thin lines. I see the second pair of line is a bit thick. That's because I used quite a heavy load, but that's what I would say a thick line look like. And as I'm running out of paint, you can see the lines are getting thinner. For this one, I'm going to try to apply a heavier pressure. You can see the line is a bit thicker, but I feel like this isn't really a natural thing to do when you're painting with a thin brush. Generally, you want to use the tip of your brush instead. Now, let's compare this with a light brush load. Even if I apply and use the sides of my bristles. The lines are still going to be fairly thin. If this is the brush that you're going to use for your final painting, try to use this time as a little warm up or exercise to paint different thin lines in different directions and see how accurate you can paint the lines. Let me try to show you a close up of what I would consider is too heavy of a brush load. You can see the bristles are well soaked right to the very tip where the water is glistening. I'm going to repeat the lines. You can see this is around the same thickness as this one that I previously painted. I just want to show you again as I run out of my paint, the lines will become a little bit thinner and more delicate. I can also apply a bit more pressure without having too much paint come out of my bristles for more controlled lines. If you're going to use a liner brush, let me just show you this one. This is a size two, so it's not the smallest liner brush, but it does have longer bristles, so it holds more water. Because the tip is nice and thin, just like the previous brush, I can still paint thin lines. However, as I apply more pressure, you can almost see a long but thin leaf shape. So though this brush is still fairly easy to use, if you're not used to applying a little bit of pressure just by using the tip of your brush, there is a bigger margin of error compared to using the previous brush with the smaller and shorter bristles. So to get used to the light pressure of using a liner brush, feel free to just repeat lines. You can paint curve lines or even simulate the veins and the veins and mid ribs of the leaves. Finally, I'm going to show you my favorite detail brush, which is a dagger striper. You can see this one has a flat barrel and quite a lot of bristles at the back, but it has a very, very ultra fine tip. This is my favorite because sometimes I just want to create very fine delicate lines for certain details. I just feel like the line quality is more natural and fine with this brush, but it is a bit tricky to use because of its shape. Just like the liner brush, this holds more paint. But if I'm not just painting straight lines, meaning I paint wavy lines like these, you can see the tip where I start is much more delicate compared to the middle section. Now, let's try to apply a bit more pressure. You can see the line can be quite thick, actually. And if I use the side, I can basically create a leaf shape. This is quite a versatile brush when it comes to creating different line weights and line quality, but I generally like to use it for detail work. Though sometimes it's difficult to get a similar line weight all throughout. This is actually what's quite beautiful about this brush. I like to use it to paint fine branches on a tree because I can angle them in a certain way, and the lines look very natural as it curves because of the slight unevenness of the weight. This right here is the type of mistakes sometimes I make if I paint too quickly with this brush. So you do still have to be very careful, even though it's a really fun brush to use. 10. Drawing Plan: Since I'm going to be using a sketchbook for my final painting, I'm going to do a double page spread on the square sketchbook. I've decided to divide each side into six rectangles. Therefore, I'll have a total of 12 leaves to paint. And because I want the freedom of painting the leaves freehand, I've decided to do some sketches to get my ideas down and just to make sure I like all the leaves together in the spread. If you have a lot of ideas in your head and it surpasses the 12 allotted slots you have, you can always use this opportunity to draw them all just to get it out of your head really quickly and then choose your favorites. Another way is also to figure out a more organic way of placing all the leaves around the page to fit all your ideas, especially if you're using larger paper. For mine though, I'm just going to stick with the 12 types. Then I'm going to fill in some empty spaces in between with some filler leaves. You want to sketch your leaves first, before painting, you can also go straight into your sketchbook or the paper that you're going to be using. Just make sure you draw really lightly because we're only going to use small amounts of paint, since we're not going to use a thick consistency, sometimes if you outline too thickly the pencil marks will show through. You can also use the outline I've given you for this class. However, if you want a bit of a challenge, you're always welcome to try painting freehand. You can always practice the individual leaf shapes in between the different types before going into the painting. This way, you can also experiment with the color choices if you want to create your own. As you can see, I like to vary the size of the leaves in my collection as well as the clusters. You can see some smaller leaves from ferns, some long pointy leaves, round leaves, and even larger individual ones. By the way, this sketch is never set in stone, it's just to get some ideas out. If you get any other ideas as you paint, just go with it. Since I'm just using scrap paper here, the way that I've placed some of the leaves, isn't actually ideal for the amount of space that I've allocated in the spread. So as I paint later, I'm actually going to adjust the way I've laid some of them out. Here is the last one, and I just want to see if I'm happy with the combination of leaves that I have. If you like how it looks here, you can just paint it the way it is. But I think it'll be nice to fill in some empty spaces with smaller leaves. I'm going to repeat some of the leaves here, but just paint them smaller to fill in the tiny awkward spaces. And after I sketch this, if I like how it looks, I'm going to bring it across to the final painting. If you don't, you can leave yours plain as well. 11. Prepping The Paper: I feel like we had a pretty decent warm up. So next I just want to prep my paper. You see, I have a square sketchbook here, and the paper is arches, cold crest, and I feel like I have enough space for six types of leaves on each page. So I'm just going to draw really lightly a horizontal line which crosses both pages. Then I'm going to divide it into three. Also use a ruler for this, but sometimes with a ruler, I find it a bit difficult to see the spacing because parts of it is covered by the ruler. So I like to do it freehand, and then I'll just clean up the lines a little bit so the division is a bit more accurate. I will only use a ruler if a straight line is needed, which in this case, I don't think it's necessary. 12. Leaf 1: Now let's begin to paint, and this will be the first one, as we've sketched out before. By the way, you can always switch the positions if you feel like it. And for the color, I'm going to use a mix of saprene, indigo, and some burnt umber. With the color, I'm going to use these three colors most of the time, but I'm just going to play with the ratio in order to create different variations of the color. Whenever you're unsure or you're not feeling confident about the brush strokes, you can always try to practice it using scrap paper. I'm only demonstrating here, but I'm not going to be doing this for the rest of the leaves, but this is an option that you can do. You can also swatch the colors out first to make sure that you like them. For the color of the stems, I'm going to again, use the same three colors. But as you can see, by just changing the ratio or even changing the thickness of the paint compared to the water ratio, from a different value, you can create a totally different color. This is the brown that I've come up with. If you want the color a bit more green, of course, you would need to add a little bit more sap green. So I'm just adding a little bit more little by little for you to see the change in color. If you want the color more muted, you can add more indigo, and if you want the color to be warmer, you can add more burnt umber, even a bit of ermilon. The stems doesn't have to look exact to the sketch, but this is just to show you what type of leaf I want to create. But I'm just going to paint according to the space that I have, and I just try to fill the space as best as I can. Before painting on the leaves, I find it a little bit easier to paint the stems first. This way I know where I want to angle the leaves. Mm. I think I'm fine with the stems. I didn't add the small ones. If I want to add shorter ones, I'll add them after I've painted the leaves. But I just want to make sure I have the main structure down so the leaves can at least face the main stems. Using the color that I've mixed, I'm just going to paint some simple leaves. I try to paint the outer part first, using a bit more pressure at the center, then I'll just fill in the rest of the space. For these leaves, I basically want them to be on the thicker side. Whenever certain positions feel uncomfortable to paint with, you can always rotate your paper or your sketchbook, so you won't need to twist your arms in uncomfortable ways. I've painted all the leaves for all the stems, but I feel like there's a bit of space between the ones on the right, so I'm just going to add a smaller one here. I use the tip of my brush to paint the stem to connect the leaves, but you can also use your small brush. This is it for the first leaf. 13. Leaf 2: For the second leaf, I want to do a simple fern with some long leaves on the sides and I'm going to create rounded tips for them. For the painting, I want to start with a dark color and I'm using my Sisu brush here. Then I'm just going to indicate where the stem is going to be. Because I want the ends of the leaves to be rounded. I'm going to use my filbert brush and I'm going to use the sides. For the green, I use the same mixture, but I'm going to add more permanent yellow deep and a bit more burnt umber to make a green that is a little bit brighter and warmer. I'm going to use a medium load on my brush, and as I'm painting, I just want to direct it towards the center, which is the stem. As I'm painting, I also want to think about a leaf silhouette for the overall shape. You can create wavy leaves to give a bit of texture, but I'm just keeping mine simple here, and you can see sometimes I didn't do a very good job taking off my brush pressure at the ends of the leaves, but it still looks okay. And what you can also do is while the surface is still damp, is to add a slightly darker value or a different tone of green that is preferably darker and you can somewhat.it in near the center where the leaves are connecting together. Unfortunately, I thought about this a bit too late. So the leaves were already a bit too dry. If not, the darker value will spread nicely, giving a really soft transition to the rest of the leaves, as you can see for some of the leaves on the bottom right. Generally, if we want to do this, I like to plan ahead. As I'm painting, I like to do a couple of leaves or three leaves at a time and swapping the colors in between. But there is a trick to this, which is to use a clean damp brush to soften the blend between the two colors as I'm doing here. 14. Leaf 3: Now moving on to the third design. This will be another simple one with round leaves, and for this, I'm going to use my Filbert brush. For this one, I just want to show you an option of drawing the stems out very lightly with pencil first because the stems will generally be painted in a dark color. So if you're nervous about painting straightaway, you can always use pencil to indicate this spacing, then it's much easier to place the leaves according to the stems that you've already drawn out. Feel like I've covered a good amount of space. So next, I'm going to mix the colors for the leaves. For the leaves, I want the color to be a bluish green. So I used a lot of indigo with a bit of sap green, and because the color is quite vibrant, I've decided to add some warmth with burnt umber as well. Since indigo is very pigmented and dark, for this one, I'm going to use a lot of water. I'm going to swatch this one out first. I feel like I quite like the green. It looks like a deep green, but on the cooler side. Again, because the color is generally quite dark, I'm going to use a lot of water for this one, and with my Filbert brush, I'm just going to paint the round leaves for the main stems first. This time, I do want to play with the value while the surface is still damp. After painting a few, I quickly want to take a darker value of the same mix and I'm going to.it in near the stems. Just so the leave doesn't look flat. I'm also going to add some oval looking leaves. But mostly on the sides of the stems that we've already painted. Again, for this, you don't want to paint too many in one go unless you're painting fairly quickly because we want to take advantage of the damp surface. So here, after painting a few, you can see the first couple of leaves were starting to dry, but I think I still made it. And again, I just thought the area where it's going to touch the stem with a darker value because I've painted cooler colored leaves. I decided to add more indigo into the mixture for the stems just so it has more of a blue tone. And then I'm just going to go over the pencil marks or the pencil lines with my small brush and also add additional stems to the extra leaves that I've painted next to the main stems. As you're painting on the stems, you do want to make sure that most of the leaves are mostly on the dry side if they're still very, very wet. The really dark color is going to blend and bleed out into the green, which is what we took advantage of when we wanted to introduce the darker tones. For this one, I also want to add a very fine mid rib to the leaves just for a bit more detail. And of course, for this, you do have to make sure that the base color is mostly dry. The drier the paper or the base, the more sharp and defined your lines will be. 15. Leaf 4: Next for the fourth leaf, I'm going to paint these large frilly leaves on one stem. For this, I'm going to use my round brush in order to create the fine tips. As for the color, I'm feeling like painting with something a bit warmer this time. I'm going to use some vermilion. I took quite a bit and put it on the side of my palette. Then I'm going to add more permanent yellow deep to the green that is already on my palette so the yellow is more muted and a bit brown. This is what the color will look like. You can see it's quite a muted yellow, and I'm going to pair this up by adding more vermilion to the ends of the leaves while the surface is still damp. For the color of the stem, I just picked the color that is already on my palette. This color turned out to be somewhat of a darker green. I tried to pick in an area where it has a bit more burnt umber. However, because the leaves are more on the warmer and yellow side, I think, looking at this now, I would prefer the stems to be a bit warmer. It is a little bit too late, so I'm just going to go with it. Here I painted the first leaf. I feel, however, the color is a little bit too vibrant. I want to play on the value a bit more. I decided to use a lighter consistency for the rest of the leaves, and I'm going to add little dots of vermilion for each leaf as I paint them one by one. You see, because I didn't let the leaf dry at all, the surface is still very damp and vermilion spreads out or blooms out really easily. Mm. For the leaves here, I'm just going to whittle my brush ever so slightly just to give this leaf a bit more character, so it doesn't look too stiff because these are fairly large. And you can also play with the thickness of the leaves. You can see on the right the leaf is a little bit thinner, so it looks like they're on an angle. And I'm going to finish off the bunch with a couple of small ones on either side at the bottom. When you add more color and the surface is still damp, you can also use your brush to help move the extra pigment around. Here I ended up trying to go over the stem again using some burnt umber. I think because I went over it and I also tried to attach a very small stem under some of the leaves. It does look a bit too thick, but I guess I don't mind it rather than having a green stem. Since the leaves are quite large, I feel like I have space to add on some details. I'm just going to add the mid roof first and see how it goes. But for this, I do want the base color to be completely dry, so I use the hair dryer to make the process much quicker. For the details, I'm just going to use the same color as the leaves with more vermilion mixed into it, and I'm going to use a medium to light consistency, so the detail doesn't stand out too much, but stays nice and delicate. After adding on the mid ribs, I don't think I need to add the veins, especially for the smaller leaves. So I think I'm just going to leave it here and move on to the next one. 16. Leaf 5: Now onto the fifth design, we're going to do something similar to this one. It's like a salvagllar eucalyptus and they will have round leaves. However, this one, I'm going to play with the angle a bit more, so I'll add more ovals. I'm going to start with the stems, but this time you can see the paint is a little bit more watery because I'm going to paint some of the leaves over the stem, so I don't want the stem to be overly dark. I think three stems will fit nicely in this space. And as for the color, I really like the blue green from before, but I want to make this a little bit different. So I'm using mostly indigo with the tiniest bit of sap green. I switched to my fbot brush, and I'm just going to paint some small leaves. These are smaller than the previous one that we painted. I want the placement of the leaves to be quite close to the stems, if not touching or overlaying the stem. And to angle some of the leaves, I basically just turn them sideways and also paint ovals instead of circles. Can also make some of the leaves a little bit longer for some variation. And while the surface is still damp, I'm going to use a slightly thicker consistency of the same color to.in the area closest to the stem. I'm going to repeat the same types of leaves on the third stem, but as I was doing this, I realized that the color of the stem is very different to the leaves. After painting on all of the leaves, I'm going to wait for the paint to settle a bit and not be too overly wet while I wait, I'm going to go over the stems again using more of a bluish tone, so I just added or layered on a bit more indigo. Have to go really quickly after this because I feel like the leaves are drying. But here, I'm just going over them again, dotting, using a thicker consistency near the stems. If they're sadly a little bit too dry here, I'm just going to use a clean damp brush to soften the blend. For a last bit of detail, I decided to add some of the mid ribs for the larger looking leaves here. 17. leaf 6: For the sixth one on this page, I'm going to create this fern right here. Going to start by painting the main stems so I can paint on the tiny leaves around them later on. For the color, I want to use a really muted green for the leaves. So for the stems, I want to create a warmer color. I've added a bit of vermilon and also some burnt umber on my palette, and I'm going to use a medium too thick consistency. For the stems on both sides, I want them to be slightly curved. And as I get towards the bottom, I want to extend the width. But right at the very bottom, I'm going to bring it in ever so slightly. So the overall silhouette of those lines are going to look like a basic leaf shape. The leaves, I want them to be very small and round. So I'm going to use my filer brush. And as for the color, I want it to be a warm muted green. So I use some burnt umber sap green with a touch of permanent yellow deep and also the tiniest bit of indigo. Because the leaves are going to be very, very tiny. I'm going to use the side tip of my filberbush. And personally, I like to work on one side first before moving on to the next one because I'm going to rotate my paper around in order to paint in a comfortable position. And because these leaves are very close together, sometimes I like to alternate on the stems that I'm painting on. So in case the leaves are going to overlap each other, I'll give it a bit of time for them to dry. If not, I might accidentally make a huge puddle. At the top, you can see some of the leaves merging together because it was overlapping and it was still a little bit wet. So I decided to just go over some of those lighter leaves to separate them. Now I'm going to move on to the next side, and you can see I've rotated my page around, so I can still paint on more or less the same angle as before. That's it for the fern. I'm just going to rotate it back, and I feel like some of the leaves are too light. So I'm going to go over some of the leaves with a slightly darker value for a little bit of variation. B 18. Leaf 7: We're finally on to the next page. For this one, we're going to do a simple one here of three fairly large leaves. For the spacing, though, I feel like this is a bit horizontal whereas we have more of a vertical composition, so I'm just going to try to fit it in. I'm just going to erase a bit of the line here because the leaf might go over it on the side. As for the color, I wanted to mostly be a muted yellow with a bit of red. So I use permanent yellow deep as the main color, and I took a little bit of vermilion, sunburn umber, and also a touch of sap green that was already on my palette. I'm just going to swatch it to see if I like the color. I think I can work with this. And for this one, because the leaves are quite large, I'm just going to go straight to painting the leaves instead of the stems. For this one, I'm going to use the wavy textured stroke, one side after the other. And if some parts are a little bit unclear, I'm just going to go over them. And while the surface is still damp, I also dotted in a bit more vermilion. I felt like the first leaf is a bit too dark, so I decided to add a bit more water. So I'm using a much thinner consistency here. But I'm going to follow the same method for the brush strokes and also adding in that tiny bit of vermilion while the surface is still damp. The dark valley of the leaf was bothering me a bit. So here I tried to reactivate a bit of the paint with clean water, and I just pick up a little bit of that extra pigment with my clean dry brush. To stick to the warm tones, I decided to just add more burn unburn to the dark brown on my palette, and I'm going to continue down the leaves with my small brush. And because of the lack of space and how close the two leaves are on the right, I decided to just join the two stems together because these are large leaves, I'm going to add details on them. So I want to make sure everything is completely dry first. I still want the details to be quite light, though, and fairly subtle. So I'm just using the same color as the base in a light to medium consistency. So it's still quite transparent. As you're painting on these details, you want to make sure you're following the curvature of each leaf. 19. Leaf 8: Mm. The next one is going to be a very simple type of fern with tiny little leaves on either side. And for this one, because they're going to be thin and long, I'm going to paint two of them in the space that I have. I'm going to use dark muted green for both the stems and the leaves. So here I've mixed up the same colors as before, which just sap green, burnt umber, and some indigo. And I've started by painting the two stems to make this look a bit more organic in terms of the placement. I played with the position and also the height difference. I'm going to use the same colors for the leaves. So this is a mix of sap cream, indigo, and burnt umber. Let's just try to swatch it and see if I like the color. I'm quite happy with this. I actually like the deep green, and I'm just going to start by painting the top of the stem. Then I'm slowly going down to paint the smaller leaves, making sure that the tip touching the stem is very, very thin. So as I'm painting each leaf, you can see I'm leaving a little bit of space in between, so I can go back with the tip of my brush to connect each leaf to the stem, or I can do it the other way around, which is to paint the really thin line first and then continue with the tiny little leaves. Being very careful with this because the leaves are very tiny. So I just use the tip of my brush to paint it. You can also use a smaller brush for this if it's a bit easier to control. But because the leaves are very tiny, I also want to make sure that the load on my brush is very light, so the leaves doesn't puddle up. While the surface is still damp, I like to take a slightly thicker consistency of the same color and, of course, dot it in where the leaf is meeting the main stem, just for a little bit of color variation and more of an organic look. I feel like there's still a bit of space here, so I'm just going to extend the stem down. And I'm basically going to just repeat the same thing for the next stem until I reach the bottom. And that's it for this one. It's super, super simple. 20. Leaf 9: I haven't done a large leaf yet, and we're going to approach this a bit differently. You can think of it as an extra technique. You can use either the Filbert brush or the round brush for this. But for this specific one because it's sharp, I'm going to use my round brush. I sketched out two here, but let's just see how many I can fit in the space. For the color, I'm going to use the same warm tone as the previous leaf foe. So since I still have the color on my palette, I just added some permanent yellow deep. I still have a little bit of vermilion, and I also use the green that was already pre mixed there. For this one, I'm going to use my round brush to create an outline. And I want to make sure that the inside is filled with watery paint because it's going to take a bit of time to complete all the sides as well. And we don't want any parts to dry yet because we want to connect the little points that we're adding here. For the points, I want to introduce a slightly warmer tone, which is why I've added more vermilion to the base mix. Mm And because the surface is still damp, I'm going to add that same warm tone and just start it in randomly. And this is why we wanted to use watery paint before because we keep adding and we don't want any unwanted lines if we paint on top of a dry surface. Again, while the surface is still damp, I'm also going to add the stem. For the stem, I've just used burnt umber, but I've added it, of course, to the premixed color on my palette. So it is a little bit darker. And I'm just going to paint a very thin line. At the bottom of some of the stems, you can see I've added a very short line. So it looks like it fell off from a tree or a larger branch. And after this, before adding on the details, I want the base to be completely dry so the details doesn't blur into the base color. For the mid rib and the veins, I use a mix of the base color and the color of the stem. But in a medium consistency, I would say. And I also switch to my size sewer brush to make sure that the lines are nice and thin. 21. Leaf 10: For this next one, we're going to paint this one with a very curvy and wavy stem with some small tiny leaves. And as for the color, I think I'm going to use a muted yellow green. I still have the previous color on my palette, which has a permanent yellow deep and vermilion. So I've just added some saprene and burnt umber. And after swatching it, I think I'm fairly happy with this color. Because of the warm toned leaf, I'm going to use a bit more burnt umber on the palette where I mix the color of the stems. Just going to paint one wavy stem for now as the main one. I'm also going to attach a tiny one on the left. That I'm going to leave it and just go straight to painting the smaller leaves. Of course, I'm going to paint a leaf on top of the stems that I've already painted. But for the rest of the leaves, I'm going to place them randomly. I'm also going to leave a bit of gap for some of them. For these areas, I'll attach them to a smaller stem. I just find that this is a little bit more flexible for me to position the leaves this way instead of having dedicated spaces already if I paint the smaller stems. This way I can also play with the distance and things like that. Just like before, I like to paint a few leaves at a time, and then I like to add a thicker consistency or just a darker value green. This was a bit dry, so I just use a clean damp brush to smudge some of the darker values. Then I'm just going to continue to paint more leaves, and of course, painting a few at a time, so I can add the darker values just like before. Once I feel I have a pretty good amount, I'm going to add another stem on the right just to fill in the space that I have and then continue to paint more leaves the same way as before. But in general, I just want to make sure that the stems for this one is very curvy with a lot of fluid movement. 22. Leaf 11: We're going to paint another large leaf here, and this time, I'm going to use the filpet brush instead because I want those edges to be a bit rounder. Just like before, I've drawn up too, but let's just see how much space we have. Actually, I feel like this is the perfect space for just one leaf. Next for the color, I want this to be a grayish green. I'm just going to use indigo as the main color and I'm going to turn this into a gray by adding burnt umber. This almost looks black, though. I want a little bit of green. But since we already have indigo, I'm just going to use a touch of permanent yellow deep and let me just watch this. I feel like this still looks a little bit too gray for my liking. So I'm just going to take some of the muted green that I've already pre mixed and see how this looks. I also added a bit more burnt umber. I think this is looking much better. It has more green. Let's paint just like before, I'm going to create the basic shape for the leaf. This time it's an oval, but the bottom is slightly wider than the top. I'm using quite a heavy load on my brush, making sure that the surface will stay damp for quite a while. Then this time with the same color, I'm going to use the side of my brush to add the rounded spiky edges. While the surface is still damp, I'm going to add the stem. And here I just use indigo with a bit of burnt umber. I'm going to dot a bit of this color at the bottom of the damp leaf, then I'm going to pull it down to create a very delicate line. Just like the large leaf of four, I have quite a bit of space to add on the mid rib and the vein. So I just want to make sure everything is completely dry first by using a hair dryer. For the color of the details, I'm going to use the same as the base, but in a slightly thicker consistency. B 23. Leaf 12: Finally, this will be the 12 leaf, which is the final one. And for this last one, it's going to be similar to this, this one, you can see by just changing the size of the leaves, it looks a little bit different. I feel like I have space for two, so I'm going to paint two stems varying in height and also position. Going to curve both of them slightly inward then for the leaves, I'm going to use the green that is already on my palette with added burnt umber. I want this to be dark muted green, but I'm going to use a slightly lighter consistency. I'm just going to paint standard leaf shapes without any wavy lines on the sides just to keep things simple. You might notice that all throughout this class, I've been using more or less similar mixtures and even just adding certain hues to or the premix colors, but you will see that the colors still have some variation to them. Is because we're mainly just changing the ratio of the color mixtures. And this really helps to keep your whole painting consistent with each other because though the hues might be different, it has tones of the colors which has been used for other parts of your painting. The rest of this is fairly self explanatory. They're nothing new on this one, so I'm just going to continue to paint on the leaves on this dm, as well as the shorter one on the right. 24. Fillers: Hm. Now that we're done with all of the 12 leaves, I'm going to erase the extra pencil marks. Then after this, I'm going to look around if you like the composition the way it is, you can call it done, or for me, I just want to fill in the little gaps with smaller leaves. I'm going to just make up random leaf shapes and you can group them however you'd like according to the size of the gaps that you have on your paper in terms of the color, since I already have a lot of mixed colors on my palette, I'm just going to use the ones I already have rather than having them go to waste. You can paint completely different leaves or repeat the same types you've already painted or even just pick one single leaf type that you might want to repeat all throughout the page. This is just to fill in the empty spots and to make the composition look a little bit more lively and dynamic by playing with the angles. For some of the larger filler leaves, if you feel like you have space, you can also add in a bit of detail. You can also use this time to adjust previous leaves you've already painted. Here, looking at the first leaf, I feel like it looks empty, so I'm going to add the mid ribs and veins using a light consistency of a warm green that I already have on my palette, and I feel like this addition just makes the larger leaves look less empty. For the rest of the empty spots though, some of the spaces are a bit awkward or they just barely fit a leaf. For these spots, I'm just going to do little dots. Some dots are larger and some are smaller, and I'm just going to scatter them around using the warm leaf color that I used. So it's from permanent yellow deep, bit of vermilion and some green. So, feel free to adjust and add little details as you please at the stage to complete your painting. You can also add some pen doodles, maybe, or some gold shimmers, which is something that I usually like to do as well. Oh And I think that's it. I'm just going to add the stems to some of the final leaves and maybe add a little bit more dots here and there, and then I'm going to finish everything off. 25. Closing and Class Project: Congratulations for completing this class. I hope you enjoyed watching through the process of the exercises and things. If you feel extra inspired or have any other ideas on top of the ones that I've shared with you today, feel free to change up any of the leaves or even the full composition. And I would invite you to try painting freehand. However, I know it can be quite intimidating. So if you're not up for the challenge, you can also use the outline provided in the projects and resources section. You're done with the paintings, I'd love to see it posted in the project section where you can share it with me as well as other students. Let's keep encouraging each other and give each other likes and comments. If you enjoy this class, I would really appreciate it if you leave a review. I always enjoy reading through them, and it helps to encourage me to create more classes that you enjoy. It also helps spread the class to more people, so hopefully more people can enjoy it, as well. You enjoy my classes and you would like to see more tutorials by me, I do have a YouTube channel called Nianiani, where I post weekly art related topics, mostly watercolor tutorials. And if you would like to see more art by me, you can also follow me on my Instagram at IG Underscore Nianiani or on my TikTok at Nianiani Art. And that's it for this class. If you're still here, thank you so much for sticking right to the very end. I wish you luck and I hope you enjoy painting along and creating your own projects. Cat wait to see it posted as well, and hopefully I'll see you soon in a brand new class. Bye.