Create an Attractive Home Decor with Unique Watercolor Tropical Leaves!

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. Welcome to my Skillshare class. This class is about watercolor painting and also about home decor. Today, I'll teach you how to paint a set of three tropical leaves that will uplift your walls. Essentially, this is a class for everybody that loves plants, painting, and decorating. Little bit about me. My name is Daniela Aschieri. I'm a Brazilian architect. I work with interior and garden design and, of course, I absolutely love plants, particularly the tropical ones and their exuberant colors. I use lots of colors in my work, especially when designing gardens, which is something I love to do using color pencils and brushes instead of a computer because I feel that something more magical arises this way. Personally, I love painting and crafting. I do it to have fun, to relax, and also as a self-expression too. I want to teach you guys the same technique I used here on these walls to create this unique tropical decor in my studio. I really loved the segment. I'm currently based in Switzerland, Lausanne, very far from my previous home in Brazil, the sunny and green city of Rio de Janeiro. I loved creating this visual as it really expresses my personality and boosts my mood. We'll have fun exploring and trying different color combinations for tree versions of a tropical leaf, the gorgeous Philodendron, with this amazing technique that has a striking visual and yet is very simple, easy to do, and on top of it, very practical as all you need is masking tape for sticking the paper leaves on the wall. In the end, I'll show you how we can place the leaves on the wall to create a beautiful and no committal wall decor as thanks to the masking tape we can always easily rearrange it in multiple ways, creating new compositions. Never get tired of your decor. Thank you. I am very excited you picked my class and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do. 2. Your Class Project: In this session, I'm talking about your class project. It's a two steps work, painting and decorating a wall with your art. We will paint a set with three different versions of the Philodendron gloriosum leaf. I chose this particular plant to be our reference for its beauty and unique characteristics as its heart shape, its big and white veins, its deep green color. All these features that make this leaf very interesting and remarkably decorative. We've captured these essential characteristics and simplify them in our painting. We are going to stylize this leaf in our own way. Just by playing with different colors, we can make different versions that together will turn into a beautiful and interesting composition. This class is very simple, but if this is your first contact with watercolors, before starting to paint the leaf, I prepared a special class that can be very useful with some watercolor from the mantle, some tips that will give you more confidence and mastery to carry out this project. Now, very much important, this class is intended to be a relaxing moment, so don't take it too seriously. Just be free, experimental, try even different colors if you want. When the paintings are done, I will show you how we can make a beautiful composition on the wall, as there are certain elements that you should take into account. I would love to see what you're doing, so please share your work in the project gallery. 3. Materials: Here is the list with all the materials you'll need for this class. I'm not specifying any brand here, so you can use whatever you have. Pencil for sketching out the leaf, eraser, masking tape; this is a very important item. We'll tape off all the borders of the painting paper to prevent it from curling up. Printer paper sheet for making the template, scissors, two water containers. One is for the water that will only be used for wetting the paper and the other one is for cleaning the brushes between different colors. Watercolor set, you can use a pen set like this one on the picture, or water color tubes if you already have it. Watercolor brushes, it's very important to use proper watercolor brushes as they have soft bristles that carry huge amounts of water. Brushes for acrylic or oil painting are stiffer and don't work for water colors. For general painting, I'm using the medium size round brush. It's the longer one in the picture from the feature brand number 8. But keep in mind that the brush numbers can be different in other brands. Make sure to have a bigger brush only to apply clean water on the paper for wetting it to receive the paint. Paper towel or tissues for absorbing any excessive water or painting on the paper from the brushes and watercolor paper. That's all the material. In the next session, I'll show you some watercolor basics for the beginners. If this is not your case, you can skip it and jump directly into this sketching session. See you there. 4. Watercolor Basic Techniques: This is a preliminary class that I prepared for beginners in watercolors before starting to paint the loops. Don't worry, these videos are short and easy to follow. I'll show you some very useful and simple techniques that will help you to carry out this project. I'm not deep diving in all the watercolor's essentials because it's really a big thing and will require a lot of time, but I'll show you some basic exercises, some tips and tricks that will be enough for you to get started and make a beautiful painting. We'll see wet on wet, wet on dry, samples and precision skills and how to blend colors directly on the paper. Let's start by painting some simple lines. Let's start with straight, vertical lines. I'm using a small round brush number 3 from Da Vinci brand to make different types of strokes just by varying the pressure and also the way I hold the brush. Light pressure makes thinner lines, and stronger pressure makes thicker lines. Try holding the brush in different inclinations, more upright, more sideways to find in which position you work better and to check how it changes the strokes. This exercise will also bring you a better sense of the proper amount of water to use to be able to make continuous lines without the need to pause in the middle or reload the brush with paint and water. Just practice doing some vertical lines for a while and you'll see how your hand can easily learn the movements. Now, let's make some horizontal lines. We will basically repeat the same movements we did for the vertical lines, varying the pressure and the inclination of the brush to produce different types of horizontal lines. The lighter we press the brush, the thinner is the line we paint. By that, we can make some different effects in our lines. Try also to feel the right amount of water you need for making a continuous line. As we did before, just repeat this exercise for a while for your hand to learn these delicate movements. Let's make some curved lines now. This is a new movement. To make the curves, we'll need to move your pose more freely than before. Like in the straight lines exercise, it also works with inclination and pressure to control the type of the brush strokes. All these simple exercises are very good for training precision and the movements. In the beginning, the lines can be crooked, but with practice, they will become more and more continuous and controlled. You can try repeating these exercises until you feel more comfortable and confident. You can also be surprised with a beautiful and curious paintings you can get by making these lines exercises. Wet-on-dry technique is basically applying wet paint directly on a dry paper. I first activate the paint by adding a bit of water with the brush and gently scrub a little. As I laid down a stroke with paint on the dry paper, it produces lines and shapes with very defined and creased edges, and I have absolute control of the process. The strokes have clearly defined shapes. Now, let's see the wet-on-wet method, which means applying wet paint on wet paper. First thing to do is attaching the masking tape all around the paper to prevent the paper from curling up. Actually, it will curl up a bit because of the water, but the masking tape will make it gets stretched and flat as it dries out. After finishing the painting, you'll be able to carefully and easily remove the masking tape, but you must wait for the paper to completely dry. To work with a wet on wet technique, first, we have to add a bit of water to create a wet surface on the paper, just enough to get the shiny surface on it for the pigments of the paints to travel through the water. Now, using the big brush, I gently apply clean water on the paper to make it wet. Now, I make a stroke on the wet paper and watch what happens. The paint blooms outwards, bleeding softly into the paper and creating undefined soft edges. You'll see the painting spreads through the water and I have no control over it and I can't stop the process. The amount of water is the most important thing in watercolors, both the water we put on the paper to wet it and the water we add to the paints to dissolve them. Before you start practicing blending colors, it's useful making a testing sheet first. This will help you to know better how the blendings work with your watercolors. Some color blendings will produce light and vibrant results, while others will make dull or muted colors, more brownish or grayish. It's important that you experiment to know which colors work better together in your watercolor set. Now, I'll show you how we can blend colors with the wet-on-wet method and create beautiful and soft color transitions. I start by wetting the paper with clean water using a big brush, and again, I just want the paper to be wet, not soaked. Now, I load my medium sized brush with green paint and start making some brushstrokes, dabbing, and making some blobs onto the paper. Then I'll add some blue paint, being carefully but quick enough to use the paper while it's still wet; otherwise, the colors won't blend and I'll have sharpened edges on my strokes. It's the water that carries the pigment, and thus, the blending. I just repeat this process until I fill the paper. Good. The paint is dry. I really love these tiny paintings. They look like Polaroids. I'll keep them to continue later. They look so delicate. 5. Sketching and Template: In this lesson, we'll do basically two things; sketching the leaf and making the template. Will use the template to transfer the shape of the leaf to the painting paper. I'm a very practical person and I like doing things quickly. Having a template saves me time when I beat many versions out of the same leaf and I never throw my templates away as I may want to repeat some projects in the future, so I can reuse them from many times. We will do everything together from scratch. Let's start sketching and making our leaf template. Here we have the four size printer paper sheets, the pencil, the razor, and the scissors. I have everything to make the leaf template. To mark the center of the leaf, I start by folding the longest side of the paper in a half. Then I outline a more or less one centimeter margin on all edges of the paper, considering that this is the place for the masking tape to be applied. Now, with the help of the reference picture, I'll draw half of the shape of the leaf starting by the center and paying close attention to this particular small curve on the top of the center. Now we could out this curved part of our half leaf. I will fold this part onto the paper and use it to outline the other side of the leaf so that both sides are symmetrical. Then I cut out the rest of the paper. Well, I see that my template looks a bit more elongated than the photo, but I like it so I'll keep it like this. But if you want to adjust the shape, it's very easy. You just outline the new shape on one side like this, for instance. Then you cut out what you don't want. Let's say this dark part. Then you fold and retrace the other side. But I'm quite happy with this shape. I will leave it like that. Now I just want to draw on the templates some of the veins, just as an exercise for my hand to learn the movement of these lines as they are a very important characteristic of the leaf. As I said, we're stylizing nature, simplifying things so I'm not doing exactly as the photo. It's perfect. Let's move now to the first painting video. 6. General Color Palette: When I start a new painting, I always start by defining the color palette and this is something I recommend you to do. The color palette gives direction to the work as it establishes the shades of the painting and it helps us not to get lost among the various colors of the watercolor set. This is the general color palette I defined for the [inaudible] leaves. There are some shades of yellow, greens, and blue colors. I put here other shades I found more beautiful and interesting, but I would be using all of these colors as you'll see. You can pick just similar shades from your watercolor set. Doesn't need to be exactly like mine as we are just stylizing the leaf. We'll make three paintings and for each version of the leaf, I'll be mixing some of the colors of this palette to get different results for each of them. 7. Painting the Leaf: Green Version: For the first version, I wanted to start painting something, let's say, closer to the real leaf, I used only the green shades of the general pallet. Here, I have the painting already done. I'm showing this just for you to see the exuberant effect that we can get by mixing only two different shades of green; light green and dark green. I hope it makes you even more inspired now. You can just pick similar shades from your watercolor set. As I said, it doesn't need to be exactly the same ones I used. Just pick a lighter green and a darker green shades. It's a very free and relaxed painting. You'll make your own green version. First thing to do is attaching the masking tape all around the paper. I put it around five millimeters inside the paper borders as the leaf is really big, almost the size of the sheet. The masking tape is very important. This will prevent the paper from curling up. Actually, it will curl up a bit because of the water, but the masking tape will make it get back, stretch it, and flat as it dries out. After finishing the painting, we'll be able to easily remove the masking tape, but only after the paper is completely dry. Next step is placing the templates on the center of the paper and start outlining the shape of the leaf. We don't need to fix it, just firmly hold it onto the paper. Just by folding the template in a half, we can draw the midrib of the leaf. All the pencil lines must be done very softly, almost invisible. Now, just by observing the printed reference, I can draw the veins, these curved lines. These pencil lines are our guides for not to apply any paint over them. We'll try to keep them as a thin white space that will be the veins of the leaf. Okay, finished. I'll keep my printed reference on the table just to look at it sometimes if I need. But as I said before, I won't try to replicate it in a realistic way. We'll just stylize it. I'll start by adding a bit of water to activate the colors that I'm going to use. In this case, only two colors, the light green, and the dark green. You can choose your own colors, but just keep in mind to use a light shade and a dark shade to have a nice contrast and a variety in your painting. First, I need to prepare the surface by making it wet, the pigments of the paints can blend into one another through the water, creating a nice and even pattern with beautiful color transitions. I will use my bigger brush with a bit of clean water to gently apply the water between the pencil lines, trying to keep a distance of around one or two millimeters from the lines. We just need to make the surface shiny and wet, not soaked. Let's start adding the paint. I'll start applying some light green, then add the dark green and blend them together. I won't paint the whole leaf at once. I will work in small parts, so this way I can have a better control over the paper, not allowing it to dry so fast. Usually, we paint with the lighter shades first, and then go adding the darker shades. As you see, the colors mix together on the wet paper through the water. I want to add some dark dots here and there. They would dissolve a bit in this still wet paint and will make a beautiful effect once it's dried. I'm going to repeat this in other parts of the leaf too. Remember to always clean the brushes in clean water between moving from one color to another. When the brush has too much paint or water, you can use the paper towel to suck some of the water or paint from the bristles, or if I have too much paint or an undesired puddle of water on your paper, you can also use it to absorb the excess. It's important to pay attention if the paper is still wet or drying as the paint needs the wet surface for the pigments to blend together. There's a certain speed to consider when painting watercolors, and it can vary accordingly to the amount of water you put on the paper or the paints, the type of the paper you have, and also the weather. I'll let a bit of paint to leak down to the next part so it can blend with the paint that I will add next. This paint is not supposed to look perfect and precise, so you can play around with the shades as you wish. I want this paint to be very loose and relaxing, so I won't be attached to following any strict pattern or sequence for applying the colors or trying to get any specific shade, or trying to find the exact spot to put the paint on. One thing to keep in mind is that watercolors get lighter as they dry out, so if you want to have a more vibrant color, you should use less water and you can always test it out in a testing sheet first. From this point on, I will speed up the video a little bit, but you can continue to paint in a calm and relaxed way, okay? Maybe at this point you're thinking that the painting is not exactly looking in the way you were expecting. But don't get discouraged. Once you've finished, you'll be surprised how it'll come together. I loved how these colors mixed together, creating these beautiful transitions. It's wonderful how water colors can be so unpredictable and so delicate. Now, let's be patient and wait for the paper to completely dry. It can take up to several minutes depending the temperature and humidity of the air. If the paper has curled up a bit, don't worry, it'll get flat on its own. The paint is completely dry so we can start erasing the base lines, doing it very gently and softly. To remove the rubber, it's better to use a dry brush or a paper towel instead of your hands as that they can be dirty or have some oil that could damage your work. Now we can remove the masking tape by pulling it sideways, very gently and slowly. Painting the whole leaf took me around 30 minutes and some extra 30 minutes waiting for it to dry, but we can speed up a bit this drying time by using a hairdryer. This is a resource that I use a lot. I keep a distance of around 30 centimeters between the hairdryer and the painting, especially from the masking tape as it can detach from the paper with the hot air. This distance can vary depending on the hairdryer you have, so you have to try and do it carefully. 8. Painting the Leaf: Yellow Version: This is the second version. This time I wanted to have something more vibrant. I used more contrast and I really loved the result. For this painting, I used two shades of yellow and three shades of green. Again, just find similar colors you have in your watercolor set, and let's get started. We'll repeat exactly the same steps we did in the first painting. I have already put the masking tape all around the paper. Now I will outline the shape of the leaf and also draw the midrib and the veins very softly. First, I need to wet the paper with clean water. Remember, only a shiny surface is enough. I'll start mixing the yellow as it's the lightest color in my palette and then I'll let the green shades and start mixing them on the paper. Do you see that the reference picture is no longer on the table? It's because we don't need to look at that anymore as you're now creating our own version of the leaf. As I did before, I'll do the painting in small parts so I can have a better control of the humidity of the paper. As I'm working with the wet-wet technique, where the pigments of the paints blend into one another through the water on the surface of the paper. From this point on I will speed up the video a little bit, but you can continue to paint in a calm and relaxed way. I'll also add some dots randomly. As I know that it will look nice and interesting when it dries out. As I did in the previous painting, I'm not following any patterns or a sequence. I'm just doing it in a losing way, applying the colors and seeing how it gets. Remember that you can always use the paper towel to remove the excess of water or paint from your brushes and paper. I'll make the borders of the leaf in a darker green. As I think it adds a nice contrast. I see that my water jars are both dirty. Time to change the water. There's too much water here in this part, so I'm using a dry brush to remove some of it. Look how these dots of paint dissolve through the wet surface. I'm going to use a more saturated yellow here. As I want to light up a bit more this part of the leaf. Remember that the paint will look lighter when it's dried. If you want to have more contrast, you have to put a more concentrated paint, which means more paint than water. The painting is finished and I think it looks really beautiful. Now let's be patient again and wait for it to completely dry. The paint is completely dry, so we can start erasing the base and lines, doing it very gently and softly. Now we can remove the masking tape by pulling it sideways, very gently and slowly. Our second leaf is ready so we can move now to the last leaf. 9. Painting the Leaf: Blue Version: This is the last version and this time I chose a bit different color combination by adding some blue shades, but still having some contrasts with the yellow as I want this leaf to stand out as well. I can say that I like a lot this version too. As you already know, find your similar colors and let's get started. Here I present the chosen colors from the general color palette for this last version of the leaves. I used in this painting six colors, the ones with the names, so you can try to find similar ones in your watercolors set. As it is before, we start by applying the masking tape all around the paper. Then with the pencil we outlined the leaf shape and draw the midrib and the veins. We can now activate the colors that we're going to use in this work by adding a bit of water to each of them. We start to wet the paper by applying some clean water with the big brush. As you already know, we'll do this painting in small parts to be able to control the drying time of the paper, as this is the key for fainting with wet on wet technique. How start with the yellow in the center of the leaf as I want to have despite too lighter than the rest of the leaf. Then I'll let some light green and light blue colors to blend together. From this point on I'll speed up the video a little bit, but you can continue to paint in a calm and relaxed way. Let's just make this final painting in a relaxed and loosen way, not following any strict patterns, just choosing the colors intuitively and allowing the water colors to surprise us in the end. I love this color combination. I'm sure this leaf together with the others will make a beautiful composition. Now we just need to wait for the painting to completely dry. We can remove the masking tape by pulling it sideways, very gently and slowly. We can start to raising the base and lines, doing it very gently and softly. The leaves are almost ready, let's move now to the finishing part. Prepare your scissors. 10. Cutting the Leaves and Quick Analysis: All the tree leaves are ready, I'm going now to cut them out of the painting paper, and then I'll speak a little bit about some interesting water effects that came up. Well, all the paintings are done and I would like to talk a little bit about certain effects that came up, like some stains that appeared with the excess of water, stains like this one here and this one here. They actually could have been avoided with less water, but in fact I like them very much, I think they had a very unique touch to the leaves. I also like to point out some differences between the dots. These dots were made when the paper was still wet. The paint spread through the water on the surface of the paper in an uncontrollable way producing this undefined shapes, and these dots here were made when the paper was almost dry, so they have this well-defined format with crisp edges. We can also see that the painting faded some of the veins that should have been preserved in white, and now they are broken. We have broken veins, but actually, I think it's really cool having this visual not so perfect and precise. All these events, the stains, the dots, and the broken veins, they can be seen as elements that add texture and personality to the leaves. They make them unique and create lot of interests. I would say actually that they play an important role and they are very welcome. 11. Wall Decor: This is finally world record time. I have to say that I'm really committed to this now, committed on the course. I decided to clean up all this wall to make room for the new composition that I'm going to make with the leaves that I've just painted in the class. It's a fresh decor. I see that this space here, it demands a vertical arrangement. Three things are important here. First, the height that I'm going to put to the leaf on the top. The distance between the leaves and also the alignment between them. First, we start by putting the masking tape on the back of the leaves. I already have the masking tape from the back of the leaves, so I'll start placing the leaves on the wall and then I'll make the necessary adjustments. Okay, important, I'm going to use a very simple tool that is very, very useful, which is my hand and my fingers. More or less I want this distance and these, I think it's too much. I think one palm is enough. I'll place the first leaf, but I don't want it to be this one actually. I want it to be the blue one. More or less the same height of my eyes. I put it here. I want the green one just in the middle. I'm using my fingers to set the distance. Three fingers is enough. The third one now. Again, the three fingers, and they look perfect but now, I'm going to check if they are really aligned. For that there is this trick here, which is a ribbon with a masking tape attached. This is a stretch so it's easy to see if they are aligned or not. We can see that this one is not, so I'll just move it a little bit to the left. A little bit. Let's see. More or less. The next one is really, really far, like one finger. I have to move one finger to the left. I think it's enough. It's not 100 percent perfect, but it looks well. I like it very much actually. You see, the masking tape is an awesome trick. As I've placed each leaf with three pieces of masking tape on the back, but you can use more. What's important is to change the masking tape once you have decided the final position because they can be less sticky as you are replacing and changing places. Put a new masking tape once you have decided the final position. I'll keep this position, because I like it very much. Here you don't see, but this is the desk where I work, so I'll be very glad to have this view from my chair, this tropical vibe around me. One more thing that I want to say about this composition, this is about movement and repetition. I like it very much because it makes my eyes to travel up and down the wall. Another thing is that repetition is something very much used in architecture, in decoration, and in fashion because it adds value and interest to simple things that wouldn't be as interesting, I would say isolated. I hope you liked this tricks with the masking tape on the back of the leaves and also the ribbon to check the alignment. They're very simple but very, very useful. This is one type of composition and of course, you can make many, many others. You can make other versions of this leaf feel larger areas and this is a noncommittal decor. 12. Final Thoughts: I want to thank you guys for joining me. I hope you enjoyed this class and also the amazing effect that is possible to achieve with such a simple technique. In this class, we made a composition with only three leaves, but now you have the skill set to create your own versions where you can mix other types of leaves, fill bigger walls, use other colors. As I said, the fun part of this project is that this is a local middle of the core, and we can always rearrange it in multiple ways, creating different compositions. So it's way more practical than a wallpaper, and it's more interesting as it's made by our own hands. I love to see what you're doing. Please share your works in the product gallery. You just need to head to the resources section of the general page of the class, and hit the button "Create Project". If you want to be the first to know about new projects coming in, just follow me here. Thank you very much for joining me in this class, and I hope to see you soon in other projects.