Learn to Paint Autumn Trees with Watercolor

1. Hello & Welcome Back!: I have always wondered how beautifully leaves grow old. Even in their last days, they are full of light and colors. The sun has gracefully taken a step back and is all set to welcome the fall season. Hello everyone, [inaudible] I'm a mother, an artist, and an art educator. I'm someone who's absolutely inspired by nature. The colors of the fall season have always fascinated me. The transition from green to yellow then to orange, and to that dark red, it's such a gorgeous process. I'm so thrilled to invite you-all to my new class. I will be teaching you how to paint autumn trees in watercolor. This class is going to be the perfect retreat for you if you are living in a region where you don't get to experience the fall season. I will be explaining about each and every material you need, then I will walk you through the custom autumn watercolor palette I chose for this class. Along with that, I will also be explaining how you can choose your own color palette. I'm someone who enjoy and believe in the process than the end result. For the same reason, I have added a bunch of exercises which will help you understand the shape of trees, the colors, and different tonal values which you can use. From there we will dive into some quick exercises. All these different sections I have added in this class is going to help you make your process a lot easier. Once you get comfortable with the color palette and the techniques, we will progress to our main tree exercises. We'll start with the beautiful birch tree, then a golden yellow maple tree. From there we will progress into a much more intense and vibrant color combination. With this beautiful color combination, we will learn to paint a red maple tree and a sweetgum tree. We'll also learn to paint four different pine trees with the autumn colors. The enter your class is done in real time, focusing on each and every minor detail. The class is composed in a way it is easy for even beginners to follow, so don't worry if you don't have any prior knowledge in watercolor. I'm really excited to welcome you all to this class. Join me and let's celebrate the season with watercolors. 2. Materials you'll need: I'm so happy that you've decided to join this class. Let's quickly have a look at the materials. We'll start with the watercolor paper. The one I'm using for this class is Canson Heritage Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper. I always prefer working on 100 percent cotton watercolor paper because of its great quality. Now, you don't need to worry about the brand. You can use any brand that you normally use, but make sure you're using an artist grade watercolor paper to get the best results. This one here, as I mentioned earlier, it is 140lb, which means the paper is quite thick. This one is 100 percent cotton and it is cold pressed paper. Now, this was an exercise-based class. We will be learning how to draw different kind of fall trees. There will be multiple versions or any better technique involved in this class, which means you can use any of the paper that you have got, you can even use your normal sketchbook, doesn't need to be artist-grade quality. But if you are willing to spare your artist grade watercolor paper, I would really appreciate that. This is the kind of texture my paper has got. That's all about the watercolor paper. Next, we'll have a look at the watercolor paint. I will be using tubed watercolor here. You can use either tubed watercolor or your paint watercolor, it doesn't really matter. We'll be working with a very limited color palette. We'll just need some fall colors, like some yellow, orange, green, and red. In the next section, I will be explaining my custom autumn color palette, which I curated for this class. The colors I will be using in this class is from the brand PWC. It's an artist-grade watercolor brand. Feel free to go with any brand that you have got. Now, don't worry if you don't have artist-grade watercolor paint, your student-grade watercolor paint will also work perfectly for this class, as we are just doing some exercises. Just take it as a learning experience and give it a try. That's about the watercolor paper and the paint. Now, to mix in your colors, you will need a mixing palette. This one here is a ceramic serving dish, which I use as my watercolor palette. I quite love the three big wells here. It works perfect for mixing the colors and it is quite easy to clean as well. You can use any of your mixing palette that you normally use. Now, about the watercolor brushes, this is size number 8 and size number 4 round brush by Silver Black Velvet brush. I will be just using one brush, which is size number 4. I just wanted to show you how these brushes comes back to a nice point, when dipped in the pain. I just dipped my brushes in water. You can see those nice pointed tip. I will be using the size number 4 brush throughout the exercises. The size number 8, I'll be using when I'm doing the watercolor swatches. You just need a medium-size brush with the size number 4 or size number 6, which has a nice pointed tip, that is the only brush you will need throughout this class. Now, you will need a jar of water. I always prefer using a transparent heavy glass jar, so I can see when my water is getting dirty. Having access to clean water is really important when you paint, especially when you need to get those fresh and clean colors in your painting. If you're using dirty water, that can impact your painting as well, you won't be getting those fresh colors. So you can have two jars of water or you need to keep on changing your water in between. Go with the transparent jar so that you can see when your water is getting dirty. Also go with a bigger jar if possible. You will need a pencil, this is just to sketch out the shape of the tree, just for understanding. Otherwise, there is no much sketching involved. Now, last but not the least, you will leave some paper towel. Instead of a paper towel, you can also use a clean cotton cloth. Those are the materials you will need to follow this class. Go grab all the materials and join me in the next section. Let's jump onto our first exercise. 3. Autumn Color Palette: Let's have a look at the colors that we are going to use in today's class. I have curated an autumn pallet for this class. You can go with any colors which are similar to the ones I'm using here, you don't really need to go with the exact same shade. Just have a look at the colors that I'm using here and try to get a similar shade from your palette. You can either use watercolor tubes or watercolor pan, that's totally up to you. Let's dive in and look at the colors. Now, you don't need to spatter the colors, you just need to have a look at the colors and just grab the ones which are similar. The first one I'm going to use is cadmium yellow light. This one is from the brand, PWC. All the colors that I'm going to use in today's class is from the same brand. You can use any warm yellow that you've have got, you can either use gamboge yellow or yellow ocher, both of them will work perfect. Let me quickly spatter the color for you so that you can get an idea. It's a very nice bright warm yellow. Look at that color. It's a perfect yellow for that maple tree. The one you see above, those birch tree and maple tree is done with this yellow. If you don't have cadmium yellow light, you can use gamboge yellow, yellow ocher, or primary yellow, or any other warm yellow that you have got. Now, the next shade I'm going to use is permanent yellow orange. This one is a nice bright yellowish orange. Now, if you don't have the same shade, what you can do is you can mix a little of vermilion or any other bright orange to your gamboge yellow. You will get a similar color, so don't worry if you don't have a bright yellow orange with you, you can easily mix and make this color. Take out a little of any orange that you have got and mix a little of gamboge yellow to that, and try out the color. Now, the next shade I'm using is vermilion. I think this is a common color, most of you may have it. It's a very brilliant orange. You can actually skip the permanent yellow orange in between, and just use gamboge yellow and vermilion hue. This one is a highly pigmented orange. You can see the bold color we have here. Those are the three shades in the orange and the yellow range. These three shades are perfect for that yellow to orange transition of autumn trees. The next shade is permanent rose. This one is also from the brand, PWC. This one is a nice reddish rose. I will be using this along with the orange. Now, instead of this shade you can use carmine or crimson. We'll be using this shade for the red maple. Along with that, we'll be adding some orange in between to give our maple tree more textures and colors. The easiest pick is gamboge yellow, vermilion red, and carmine or crimson. I think these three shades comes in all of the basic watercolor palettes. The yellow orange also can be easily made by mixing any of your yellow and orange. We are [inaudible] now. Now, the next one is, again, a common color which most of you may have. This one is burnt sienna. We'll be using this shade directly wherever we need to add those dried leaf kind of effect, and also for the tree trunk. I think, so far, the colors I picked here is available with you all. I haven't gone into any exotic shades. Most of them here is easily available in all watercolor palettes. These ones here are the easiest options. You can go with any other colors if you want, that's totally up to you. We just need to get that fall vibes in our trees. This is my choice of colors. If you would like to use more of muted colors instead of burnt sienna, you can go with burnt umber. Instead of the cadmium yellow light, you can use yellow ocher. You can go in a muted color range if that is what you prefer. Those are my yellow, orange, and red. Now, the next shade I have here is Payne's gray. This is to add all those tacotunes and the details. Now, if you don't have paint gray, you can use black or you can create paint gray by mixing a pinch of burnt sienna into indigo. If none of them are available with you, go ahead with black. You can create different varieties of paints gray by mixing any of the blue and any of the brown that you have got. You can also experiment with rose sienna or burnt umber by mixing that with ultramarine blue, indigo, Prussian blue, any blue. You will get different kinds of paints gray by mixing browns and blues. Try that out if you want to create your own paints gray or go with black instead. Now, the next shade I'm going to use is sap green. This one is, again, from the brand, PWC. That is going to be the next shade. Again, this one is also a common color. Now, sap green is a very pleasant green. Only at few places, I will be using sap green as it is. Otherwise, I will be creating an olive green. If you look at the fall trees, you can see that sap green, that pleasant green, is kind of transitioning into an olive green. We'll be using mostly olive green in our trees. I'll show you how you can make your own olive green, if you don't have one. The easiest way to create olive green is by mixing a pinch of burnt sienna into your sap green, you can see the kind of color I'm creating here. Instead of burnt sienna, you can also use orange, that will give you a different type of olive green. Here, I mixed burnt sienna and sap green, and I'm going to show you the color I have got. Now, I have this Van Gogh olive green already with me which I'm not going to use for this class. I will be mixing and making my own olive green, which is what I prefer more. If you have an olive green in your palette, you can readily use that or you can mix and create your own as I'm doing here. Let me spatter the color for you. Here, I mixed burnt sienna and sap green. You can create different variety of olive green by reducing the amount of burnt sienna. If you add more, you will get a more earthen green. Instead of burnt sienna, you can also use raw sienna or orange, that will give you a different kind of olive green. Try out all the mixing options and decide on which kind of olive green you want to use for your fall trees. Maybe, you might be going with orange and sap green, or burnt sienna and sap green. Maybe you can try out both the options on a scrap piece of paper and decide on which one you like more. Here's a closer look of the colors I will be using for today's class. This is the custom palette I created. Now go ahead and create your own custom autumn watercolor palette, and join me in the next section. Let's get started. 4. How to choose your color palette: In the previous section, we already discussed the colors that we are going to use in today's class. Now, let's have a look at some fall colors and understand how you can build your own color palette. So here's the colors we selected. You can see how well they are going with those images I have on my phone. Before I decided on these colors, I had a thorough look through so many photographs. I haven't experienced autumn season in real so I have to build my inspiration from looking at photographs. I was impressed with several photographs. This was one. From this one, I decided on which yellow I should be using for my trees. That's how I landed on cadmium yellow, and also the orange is there. Now, this was another one. You can see the brilliant orange and red in this picture. Here is another tree. I really love the sheep and the colors in this one. So we'll be doing a similar tree. This one was clearly inspired from this tree here. Whenever you are confused about the color palette, you can just scroll through some images. This can be done for any painting that you want to do. If you are painting winter, or spring, or any season, just scroll through some images and understand the real colors from nature. You can see these yellow and orange here. We'll be doing a birch tree in a similar color combination. Just randomly look through some images and fill your mind with all those fall colors you want to use. You don't need to stick to the colors that I have chosen here. That is why I decided to show you some images. If you look at this tree here, you can clearly see all those yellow and orange tone. The first three colors we have chosen in every color palette goes perfect for this tree. Likewise, by observing nature, you can decide on the color palette that you want to follow. This is not just for this class, this is for every painting you do. Your biggest inspiration should be Mother Nature. Now if you look at this tree here, you can clearly see this orange, red, and brown can be used for this one, and this yellow one, we can use the first two shades for this. Maybe for the deeper tones, you can add in a bit of burnt sienna as well. Now in the next section, we'll have a quick look through some techniques. We'll be following the techniques more or less in a similar way for all the trees. We'll be just tweaking the colors. Now by looking at different photographs, just like the color palette, you will also get an understanding about the various shapes you can follow for your tree. The two things which is going to make your painting unique is the color palette and also [inaudible] these shapes you will be using for your tree. For this one, you can clearly see, you can just use the yellow and orange here. Before jumping on to the exercises, just scroll through different images and have an idea about the colors and the shape of various trees. Now for this one as well, the same color palette can be used. Maybe for the deeper tones, you can add in some more burnt sienna. Now for this tree here, you can use orange as the base shape and add more deeper tones using burnt sienna and burnt umber. What I mean to say is, you can just skip the color palette I'm using here and follow your own color palette. You just need to have a look through some photographs and get inspired by the real colors from nature and curate your own color palette. I'm just giving you some ideas to bring in your own style and bring in your own identity to your trees. You can simply follow the color palette I'm using here, that is also up to you. Just grab similar tones from the colors which are available with you and join me in the next section. Let's start with our exercises. 5. Understanding the shape of trees: Now we have an understanding about the fall colors and how we can use them in wall paintings. Now let's have an understanding about the shape of the trees. I will quickly run you through some photographs. For example, this tree here, it is short and it has got a huge spread. If you look at this one, this is a tall tree compared to the other one, and the tree canopy is also different. All these trees here have got different kind of tree canopy, some of them are long and some of them are short with a huge spread. Each tree has its own unique identity. Let's have a look at a few different types in detail. I'm going to draw the tree cover here. You can see the shape this tree has got. We'll try to mimic the same shape in our exercises. The tree is a little short, but it has a huge tree canopy. The colors are looking so good, I'm loving the orange and the red tones. Look at the ground filled with all those colorful leaves. It'll be so nice to sit under this tree. This is one type of tree, we'll have a look at few more types. By the end of this section, you will have an understanding about the colors and also the shape of the trees. Once you have an understanding about the colors and also the shape, you can create a variety of all trees. Simply type in autumn trees in your image search and try to sketch out as many shapes as possible. Now sketching these shapes will really help you in your other projects as well. This is not just for autumn trees, you can use them in any of your paintings. Now if you look at this image here, you can clearly see the tree shape is different. The other one was short and it had a huge footprint, but as this one is quite tall, the overall shape of this tree is very much different from the first one. Every tree you see around has a different unique identity, the color will be different, the shape will be different. There are so many different things which make them unique from one another just like all of us. Here you can see a cluster of trees. Some of them are tall, some of them are short. The shape is different, the colors are different, so all of them are beautifully unique. We need to bring in this variety for our trees, we'll have to explore different color combination, different shapes, different textures, and different tones. We are in the right direction. We explored the color palette and the different shape of trees. Now we have to put them into practice. This exercise is just for an understanding, you really don't need to sketch out the shape of the tree when you are painting it. If you're a beginner and if you're not quite sure how to progress, you could do that. As you advance in your skills, you'll be able to get them in a very flawless manner. Now it's time to take out our art supplies and explore what we learned so far in colors. 6. Techniques: I have an image on my phone, I'm going to mimic the shape of the tree. A very rough shape. That is the overall shape of the tree. Now we're going to add color to this. Let's go with the same colors as we see in the picture. We'll go with yellow and orange. This one here is cadmium yellow. I'm going to fill up that entire shape in this color. This one is a very easy technique, you You need to follow the overall shape of the tree first. Then onto the outer surface, just follow that outer line and adding these dots using the tip of your brush. Now this doesn't need to have any properly defined shape. You just need to press your pressure onto paper like this and create some random patterns, especially under that outer shape. Now by doing this, my intention is to get rid of that defined yellow shape we have on the outside. I'm going to go around and add these patterns all around. I forgot to talk about the sketchbook I am using here. This one is a very normal sketchbook which I use for writing down my notes. That's not an artist grade sketchbook or anything. This one is made of those rocks copy paper, the one you use for printing. Now, when you're doing this, if you're doing it on an artist grade quality paper, the background can stay wet for a longer time, you could see my background is drying. At some places it is still wet and at some places it has dried completely. So the dots I'm adding now, some of them are spreading into the background and some of them are staying as it is, but then that's totally fine. You can have a mix of solid patterns and blurred patterns. This will make your tree look more realistic, but so many textures and different tools. Now, I'm switching back to yellow and I'm going to take the tree out a bit more by adding dotted patterns onto the outer area. Now I'm going to go with Burnt Sienna, and I'm going to add some deeper tones, especially onto that left area. You could see how we have those deeper tones in the image. It is the same technique and following here, I'm just pressing my brush on the paper and creating this patterns. As I said earlier, it doesn't need to be any properly defined shape. You can simply keep on pressing your brush onto the paper. Now, you don't need to be that careful or you don't need to put any pressure while you're doing this. Is going a very careless manner and keep on pressing your brush onto the paper. You can play around with as many tones as you want, maybe you can go with much more indent oranges in between. You can also add some red if you want. All those will bring in so many tones and texture to our tree, which will make it look more gorgeous. The same technique can be used to paint a tree of any color. You can use the same technique to paint a green tree as well, you will need to go with a base green shade. Then you can add more tones of green by pressing your brush onto the paper. So that's the tree. Now I'm going to add the tree trunk. I mixed a bit of Burnt Sienna to paint green to get a darker version of Burnt Sienna. I'm simply adding a line here. Then using little of water. The right side, I'm making a little lighter. Now, few branches. That's it. That's our first tree. This is just an exercise before we go ahead with double main trees. The colors I used here are from my palette. I went in with cadmium yellow for the background, then added these patterns using yellow, orange, then again with Burnt Sienna. Let's try another one. Maybe we can go with this one. This one is little more taller and the shape is also different. I'm starting with the overall shape. That's the basic shape of the tree. Now onto the outer edges, just like how we did on the other one, we'll be adding those dotted pattern and you'd be hiding that overall shape. I'm starting by filling the entire shape in permanent rows. I fill that entire shape. Now just like the previous one, we need to add in the deeper tones. To my permanent rows, I added a pinch of Burnt Sienna, that is the tone you're seeing here. Now, I'm simply taking my brush around the shape and I'm adding these dotted pattern. Now water will be the shape you're going with and water will be the color you are using. We need to hide that pencil sketch we added. We need to get rid of that defined shape we have there. That is why we are adding these patterns. You can go with orange, yellow, or green for this tree. You can choose your color combination and go with a deeper tone when you're adding this final patterns. You shouldn't be playing with at least three different tones. That'll automatically make your tree look more beautiful. If you don't play with multiple tones, your tree will start looking very flat. There won't be any textual and realistic look to your tree. Now I'm going with a much more deeper tone. I mixed paint gray into my permanent rows. I'm doing the same thing again. I'm going around the outer shape and I'm adding these kind of dots. Here you can see some of the area are still wet. So when I'm adding these patterns, they are spreading into the background and giving me a nice texture there. Some areas has dried completely, where I'm getting a solid pattern. As I mentioned earlier, those things are absolutely fine. You don't need to worry about them. Now with the same shade I used for those deeper tones, I'll have a tree trunk. So that is our second tree. If you look at the picture here, you can see the kind of different orange, red, and brown you have in the tree. We need to replicate all those multiple tones in your tree to make it look more realistic and to bring those autumn wipes. Let me look for some more pictures. Such a pretty tree, look at those colors. You can try the same, the first one, the yellow one we did. You can make that a more rounded shape and try out this. All you need to do was tweak the colors and tweak the shape of the tree and follow the same technique. I think by now you guys are quite clear with the technique we're using. Now we can try a green version of an autumn tree. We'll play with some green and orange tools. Let's try that. I will start sap green directly, then I will add in some orange. This time, I'm not going to add AutoShape, I'm going in with the paint directly. Now as you progress and as you advance in your skills, you don't really need to add AutoShape. You can directly go with the paint and create a shape while you add the colors. Now I added sap green, now I'm switching to orange. I'm going to add that next to the sap green, so I will automatically get an olive green there. Now I'm taking it out and defining the shape of the tree. To define the AutoShape, simply press your brush onto the paper and keep on adding these dotted pattern without lifting your hand. I think I need to add some more orange tool. I'm using vermilion and I'm simply dropping some more orange here. Just a bit because I lost all those orange tone. I went a little overboard with the sap green. Now I'm going to add fill onto the AutoShape as well. So we tried three different trees with three different color combination. One was yellow, one was red, and now we're trying a green and an orange combination. Now we'll be using the same techniques and a little more refined manner in our main tree exercises. I hope this section was helpful and I really hope you all got a little idea on how to proceed with your trees. We started off with the base color. It could be yellow, it could be orange, it can be a light green, it can be any color that you want. Then we kept on adding more deeper tones by pressing the brush onto the paper. We created these dotted patterns in a very abstract manner. All you need to focus is on these patterns with the tip of your brush, maybe you can practice this. It is just this brush moment which will help you make your tree more conscious and more beautiful. Now while you're doing this patterns, you need to be as free as possible. Let go off all the fill and simply keep on pressing the tip of your brush on the paper. Just keep on adding them without lifting your hand. That was more about the foliage. Now I'm going to show you how to do a bush tree. I will just focus on the tree trunk, especially the bark and all those textures. We'll be doing a full tree in the next section. In that, the tree trunk won't be this much detailed. I just wanted to show you how you can create a very realistic bush tree. Now because this is a very normal paper, this one is a spiral bound notebook, which I use for writing mostly. If you want to try out the same one on artistic quality paper, that would be great, so the textures and details will come out nicely. I'm starting with a light tone of Payne's gray. I'm adding the tree trunk. I will just show you a small bit which you can turn into a full tree if needed. That's the base wash. I added light tone of Payne's gray, now I'm going with the next one of Payne's gray. Before this one dries, we'll just drop in some darker tones. You need to go with the gray which is a little darker than the one in the background. I'm dropping that into the wet background at random spots like this. We need a more textuary background, so the color that you dropped in now, if that didn't blend into the background, that is absolutely fine. Once you have added the darker tone, wait for that to dry. Now we're going to add in the final details. We're going to add in some dry brush patterns just to give it more textures, so dip your brush on a paper towel. We need some dry paint on the brush with already less water content. Then scratch the brush on that pattern we created. Now if you're using artistic quality watercolor paper, the paper will have some textures. So the texture on the paper will automatically elevate the dry brush patterns you're adding now. I got enough of textures, now I'm going with the final details. Go with dark tone of Payne's gray and use any of your brush which has a pointed tip. Now pick out those areas where we dropped in that medium tone of Payne's gray. Focus on those areas, add a darker tone over there like this, and then smudge that into the background. You can either add tiny lines like this and make that transition very natural or again, simply scratch your brush and smudge that into a background. We don't need a smooth blend or a smooth transition here, so you can follow any method you're comfortable with. Now using the tip of the brush, I'm going to add some circular lines like this. You can see them on the picture. I'm trying to replicate that. Now the circle doesn't need to be a smooth curvy line. It can be a very irregular patch. Now randomly go pick some area and add some patches like this. You shouldn't be adding them close to each other, leave some spacing between each of them. We need to clearly see the light of background, the textures we added, and all those different tones. So you shouldn't be adding a lot. Also, you don't need to add them as a full circular line, it can be in bits and pieces. You can see none of the lines I didn't take from one end to the other. Some of them are very short and some of them I took halfway through. Going a similar pattern. Finally, I'm going to add in few branches and that will be done with our bush tree. In the next section, we'll be doing a complete bush tree, but the tree trunk won't be this much detail. So consider size and proportion and add in as many details as you want for your tree trunk. 7. Birch Tree: The first tree we're going to try is a birch tree. Let's start with the tree trunk. I'm going with the lighter tone of paint gray, a very light tone. Now using the slight tone of paint gray, I'm going to draw the tree trunk first. The brush I'm using here is size number 4 round brush. Start with the thin line and as you progress down, you can make the tree trunk more thicker. You can see the color I'm using here, it is a very light tone of gray. The tree trunk of a birch tree is a very light color, which is smaller like a light gray and a whitish tone. We're trying to create something like that, that's why I'm going with a very light tone of gray. You can make your tree trunk even more lighter if you want. That's the base shape of the tree trunk. Now I'm going with a little more darker tone of paint gray. I'm going to drop in some darker tones onto this wet background, just in a very random manner. There is no specific shape that I'm following. I'm just dropping in that darker tone of paint gray onto the wet base shape of the tree trunk. Now they're adding these different tones of gray onto that base shape, to get more textures and more realistic look to our tree trunk. We applied a light tone first and we've ended with the next tone of gray, and we're simply dropping in some darker tones at different parts of that shape. As the background is wet, the paint you're dropping in will nicely spread into that background, giving us a very natural blend. Now let's wait for this to dry, and after that we'll be adding more deeper tones and more details onto this. The base shape has dried, now I'm going with a much more darker tone of paint gray. We're going to add the details now, so your brush should be having a nice pointed tip. I'm going to add some very random shapes and patterns onto the background. They already had a closer look at those shapes and patterns that you can use on the birch tree, so try and create something similar to that. There are two things you need to keep in mind. You shouldn't be filling up the entire tree trunk in so many shapes. It shouldn't look busy. You need to have proper spacing between them. You need to see that lighter tone in the background and some random patterns here and there. If you're adding too many details, you will lose the character of a birch tree. I guess you might have seen in real or in photograph how a birch tree looks. It has a white bark with some black details. Over time it starts peeling off horizontally in thin sheets, and that peeled bark will create these irregular patterns on the tree trunk. I added quite a lot of patterns. We can see the spacing I have between each of them. I haven't added a lot. You can see the lighter tone in the background and few patterns at very random areas. Now I'm adding some circular lines like this, again, with a very sufficient spacing. At this point, I'm using the much darkest version of paint gray, which is almost close to black. I'm using the tip of my brush. I'm adding these lines and little dots here and there. This is how my tree trunk is looking right now. Now onto this I'm going to add some branches. Go with the darker version of paint gray and using the tip of your brush. Let's add some thin and delicate branches. Switch to any smaller size brush or a detailing brush if your brush doesn't have a pointed tip. If you add very thick branches, your tree may go out of proportion. Use any brush which has a pointed tip and try and get some delicate and thin branches. I'm really loving the way how our birch tree is slowly taking a very realistic look. For this tree here, I'm going to add yellow foliage. I'll be going with cadmium yellow and a bit of yellow-orange. You can use the same technique and you can alter the colors. Maybe you can go with a more orange-ish or more greenish shade. You can alter the colors according to the field that you want to bring in your painting. If you want more dried leaves, you can go with a more brownish tone, or if you want that green which is transitioning into autumn, you can go with an olive green tone; or if you want some very bright and bold orange and red leaves, you could do that as well. Just follow the technique I'm using here and go with your choice of color. That's our tree trunk. Everything has completely dried. Now, it's time to add in the foliage. Let's start with yellow. This one is cadmium yellow. I'm going with a very bold tone of yellow. Now as I mentioned earlier, you can use either gamboge yellow or yellow ocher, or any other warm yellow, don't worry if you don't have cadmium yellow. Now, I'm just dropping in the paint. I'm just pressing the brush against the paper and creating these patterns just like a leafy pattern. I'm taking my brush around those branches we added. You just need to dab the brush on the paper, leaving some white gaps in between. Just load your brush with enough of paint and just keep on pressing your brush against the paper, and create these patterns. Just have an idea about the overall shape of the foliage, and keep on pressing your brush on the paper, and create as many leaves as you want. It is actually a very simple technique. You just need to keep on pressing your brush and add these dotted pattern, which will be your leaves automatically. You can add them close to each other and onto the outer shape, you can add them in a very scattered manner. The same technique can be used to paint a normal tree, you just need to use different tones of green. Now onto the outer shape of the tree, I'm going to create some leafy patterns. I'm loading my brush with some more yellow, and I'm just pressing my brush like this. Maybe you can sing along and keep on adding them without lifting your brush. You can add quite a lot of them at a single time. Now this area is done. I will be doing the same onto the entire tree. I'm really loving the yellow foliage. It will look really great if we have a clear blue sky background. I've added a little on to the top as well, and then we'll switch to yellow-orange and we'll add the next tones. If you observe a tree closely, you can see multiple tones of color. If it's a green tree, you can see multiple tones of green. There will be some lighter tender green, and there will be some dark tones of green as well. Some leaves will be just sprouting. Some leaves might have dried as well. No matter the color of the tree or the season, there will be multiple tones on a single tree. It is those varying tones which will add more beauty and depth to your trees. To add the next tone I'm using permanent yellow-orange. Now as I mentioned earlier, if you do not have permanent yellow-orange, you can mix gamboge yellow and a little of scarlet, or vermilion, or any other orange you have got. Now, I'm going to repeat the same. I'm concentrating on the areas which are closer to these branches, and I'm just taking my brush in that dotted pattern, and I'm adding some leaves over here. Now for this tree, I wouldn't be adding any other tones. I will be just going with the yellow and orange. If you want you can go with the more darker version of orange as well, and you can add some more dotted pattern using a darker tone, or maybe you can use buoyancy now. If you want more tones and more texture on your tree, you can go with multiple tones. Now when you're doing an autumn landscape painting, there will be trace of multiple shades. There will be some yellow tree, there will be some orange, maybe some brown, some green. You can use the same technique but change the color, so instead of yellow, you can start with orange directly as your base color. For the next ones you can go with a much more darker tone of orange, and also progress into brown and ample sort of colors. Just by using the same technique, by tweaking the colors, you will get a variety of trees. We'll be doing the same thing in the part 2 of this class, where we will be painting some color just autumn landscapes, with trees of all possible colors, shapes, and sizes. You can see the base yellow color and different tones of orange I have got here. I'm just randomly running my brush around that shape of the tree, and I'm just dabbing my brush onto the paper and creating these leafy patterns. You can see how nicely of a tree is taking its shape. For this entire tree, we only used three colors: paint gray for the tree trunk, and yellow as the base shade for the leaves, and a little of bright yellow-orange. I hope this was an easy one. Give it a try. We'll be using the same technique and we'll be painting a yellow maple tree. This is our tree. Maybe I'll add a few hanging branches. I'm going with the darker tones of paint gray, and I'll just add some branches over the bottom. I really love the tree trunk. Those textures and those little patterns, everything is looking so realistic. You can paint multiple trees and create a birch tree forest. Maybe we could try out something like that in our part 2. I've add one last branch over here, and that we are done with our first tree. You can see those gorgeous golden yellow and orange we have got here. That was the first one, now let's try a maple tree. 8. Yellow Maple: That was our yellow birch tree. Now using the same technique we used for the foliage, I'm going to create a maple tree. I'm starting with cadmium yellow, it is the same technique we used earlier. This time we are defining the shape of the tree first. Then after that we'll add though tree trunk. Now, once we finish yellow maple tree, it will be very clear for you that using the same technique, just by tweaking the shape of the tree, you can create a variety of trees. Okay, let's start. I have loaded my brush with enough cadmium yellow. Now, just like I mentioned earlier, if you don't have cadmium yellow, you can use gambled yellow or yellow ocher, or any other warm yellow. Now, this time I'm not going to add the shape of the tree. If you're not too confident with the shape, maybe you can sketch out the shape, just like how we did in the technique section. If you're feeling confident enough, give it a go without sketching the outer shape. Trust me, you'll be fine. Just to make it a little more easy, this is the kind of shape I will be following for our tree. We did a similar tree in our techniques section, but then we applied a solid shade onto the overall shape first. Then we added these buttons onto the outer shape. But here the only difference is that I'm not applying a solid shade onto the sheet. I'm dabbing my brush onto the paper and I'm applying the paint in a very scattered manner because I need those little white gaps in between, which is going to make my tree look more realistic. Now, this would really make a difference if you have a sky in the background. Now, we just have the paper white in the background, so it won't have a lot of impact. But wait for my watercolor autumn part 2 class, we'll be paintings some amazing landscape. Will also learn how to preserve those white and turn them into sky. For now, you can simply tap the color onto the paper, leaving little wide gaps in between. Now, depending on the size of the tree that you're painting, you can switch to a bigger size brush. That is easy for you while applying the paint. I have applied the base shade now on to the AutoShape, just like how we did here, I'm taking my brush and a dotted pattern and I'm creating those links. I'm quite sure, but each tree, you will be making a good progress with your skills and by the time you finish all the trees, you will be good to go with your final autumn landscape. So that's the base tone, we applied yellow, we follow the shape of the tree. Now I'm switching to my yellow orange, the same shade I showed on the color palette. Now using this shade, I'm going to apply the deeper tones. I'm going around the overall shape of the tree, and I'm just adding those dotted pattern using this orange. You can use various tones of orange Aspen. At some area, maybe you can add a very bright orange and at some spot you can go with the lighter orange. When you play with multiple tones, there will be lot of textual sign dipped in your tree and this will make your tree look more gorgeous and applying this orange tones onto the wet background. So the color is nicely spreading into the yellow background. As you hit the AutoShape maybe you can take out that dotted pattern a little more outward and spread the tree. You can see on this image how those leaves are spreading outward. You can take your leaves outward in a similar manner. That was yellow and orange tones. Now I'm going to switch to burnt sienna, and I am going to add some multiple tones using burnt sienna. I will take out a little of burnt sienna on my palette. This one is from the brand PWC. If you want more orange too, you can use a brighter orange instead of burnt sienna. I think I'll go with a bit of brown so that every tree we'll get a little more autumn wipes. I will be going with a medium tone of burnt sienna, I won't be adding a very dark tone. You can see the kind of color I have here. Now, just like how I did that, the orange, I'm going to take my brush around the overall shape and I'm going to drop in some darker tones are trying to [inaudible]. The orange tone I added is still wet. So first I will go around those areas so that the color will spread into the background. You can see how beautiful those tones are looking together. In a similar manner, I'm going to take out a little more burnt sienna and I'm going to add some more around all these areas, where I have the orange. Now if your background has completely dried and if you are getting some strong patterns when you're applying burnt sienna, you can wash of the burnt sienna from your brush and switch back to your orange and smudge the color a bit. You will get a more blurry and a subtle look to your tree. But having some strong and solid patterns is also fine because we are trying to create more and more texture on our tree. So it totally depends on the style that you want to follow. If you want a more subtle look to your tree, then you can smudge the color using a little of, orange or yellow, or you can leave it as it is. I'm really loving this golden, yellow and brown and orange I have on my tree. It's a great combination. That's the foliage. Now let's add the tree trunk but that will be done with our yellow maple tree. To paint the tree trunk, I'm using a darker tone of burnt sienna. I'm mixing a bit of paint gray to burnt sienna to get a deeper tone. If you have burnt umber we can readily use that. Or you can mix and make your own dark brown. You can see the color here. It's a very deep brown. I'm not going to add a lot of details onto the tree trunk. I'm simply drawing a shape with the color I made here. If you want to go with a more detailed tree trunk, you can play with multiple tones of brown. I will simply add a tree trunk and after this I will add few branches onto the tree. I hope you guys are enjoying the exercises so far. To me personally more than the exercises, I'm really loving the color combination we are working with. In the next section we are going to paint a red maple tree, where we will explore another gorgeous color combination. There I have my tree trunk. Now I'm adding few, thin and delicate branches onto the foliage. We can pick few spots and add few tiny branches like this. You should be going with very thin lines. It shouldn't be very thick. Otherwise your tree will go out of proportion. So make sure you're using a brush which has appointed tip. All right guys, we have finished painting our yellow maple tree. Now it's time to explore the same maple tree in a different color combination. I cannot wait to show you my red maple tree. I'll see you in the next section. 9. Red Maple: Welcome back, my dear friends. We explored two trees with the yellow and orange color combination. We tried a bush tree and a maple tree. We used cadmium yellow as the base color, and we added the deeper tones using yellow, orange, and also using burnt sienna. For the beach tree, for the tree trunk, we used Payne's gray, and for the maple tree, we went in with a darker tone of brown. Now it's time to explore another color combination using the exact same techniques we used for our yellow maple tree. We're going to try a red maple tree. This lesson will give you a proper understanding on how to use the same technique with a new color and change that into a totally new tree. Just like how we used yellow for the base tone, and orange, and burnt sienna for the deeper tones, we'll be going in a similar manner. For the base color, I will be going with a reddish orange. For that, I will be mixing permanent rose and vermillion red. Instead of permanent rose, you can also use carmine or crimson. We need to create a reddish orange. I don't want to use the rose as it is or the orange as it is. I want a combination of both the shades. I will take out a little of permanent rose on my palette. I'll just squeeze it here. That is permanent rose. Now, the next shade I will need is vermillion. You can use any of the bright orange that you have got. We are going to mix these two colors together. The combination of these two colors are going to give you a bright and bold reddish orange, which will be the perfect shade for our maple tree. I have both the colors ready on my palate. Now, I'm not quite sure whether it was easy for you when we painted our yellow maple without adding the base shape. If it was little difficult for you, maybe then you can start with adding a base shape, just a simple shape like this, which is very similar to the yellow maple. If it is easier for you to paint the tree when you have a base outline, you could do that. You can see the kind of shape we added for the yellow maple tree. You can add a similar base shape. Now, if you're adding a base outline, make sure your pencil lines are very light. If you go with a very bold and strong pencil line, it might show up even after you add your paint onto that, especially if you're going with a lighter tone. I think that red doesn't really matter, but then if you are painting your tree in yellow, it might be visible even if you add the color. I'm starting with the permanent rose and I'm adding the color onto that shade, just like how we did with the yellow. Now, I'm switching to vermillion red. I'm combining them together. You can clearly see here how I'm leaving those white gaps in between. With the yellow one, it wasn't really visible. But here, because the color is very bold and bright, you can see those gaps in between. Now, let's go ahead and fill up that entire shape with varying tones of permanent rose and vermillion. In-between, you can go with a darker tone and in-between, you can dip your brush in a little water and make the color a little lighter. For the previous maple tree, we added yellow onto that entire base shape. Now, we have two colors here. Depending on the colors you have chosen, keep switching from one to other. At some places, you can go with orange and at some places, you can go with permanent rose or crimson, which will be the color you have chosen. I dipped my brush in a little of water so that I can play with multiple tones of orange and rose. You can see the color I'm adding here. Keep playing with different tones of orange and rose, and fill up that shape. You can see how beautiful this color combination is looking, especially at those places where the two colors are combining into each other. Now, in a similar manner, let's keep on adding orange and rose, and finish the entire tree. I'm going with orange over here. There is no rule or there is no order here, you can keep switching from one color to the other. Just focus on the shape we have added and keep on adding color that you have chosen for you tree, whether it's orange, or red, or green, or what will be the color. Just keep switching from one to other. In between, you can dip your brush in a little water and play with lighter tones as well. The base shape is ready. Now I'm going with a deeper tone of rose. I'm mixing up a pinch of burnt sienna into my permanent rose to get a deeper tone. It's not too deep, just a little deeper than the actual color. You will see that when I'm applying the color. Now, in a similar way, how we added those darker tones on the yellow maple tree, we're going to do the same thing here. I'm taking my brush in a very random manner and I'm keeping on adding those dotted pattern to create the leaves. You don't need to add a lot of them because we already have two different colors in the background and we have played with multiple tones of those two colors. You can be very minimal with your darker tones. Now, if you prefer a tree which has more darker tones than lighter tones, you can add in a more deeper version of red, maybe you can mix a little of Payne's gray and go with more dried leaves. Depending on the kind of look you want for your tree, you can modulate the colors you're using. I won't be going with another round of deeper tones. This will be my final color combination, because I'm really loving the colors here and I don't want to make it any darker. So I will stick to the same colors I have here. I won't be adding any brown or Payne's gray onto this. Now, if you look at my tray closely, you can clearly see the background has completely dried, and the patterns I'm adding here as quite strong and solid and does not blend into the background, but then it has its own beauty. You can see the kind of textures I have got here. But on the yellow one, all the colors were nicely spreading into the background. This is why I was telling you don't need to worry if your background has completely dried. Both of the techniques has its own beauty. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that you shouldn't be jumping from yellow to brown. There should be a transition. If you look at this tree here, you shouldn't be jumping from orange to Payne's gray or orange to burnt sienna. You should follow that transition. If your base shade is orange, you should go from orange to a darker red and to a darker brown. That transition should be there, otherwise, it may look really odd. I'm nearly done with my red maple tree, maybe I will add a few more leaves onto the top area. I will just take those dotted pattern outside and give it a more organic and natural look. I won't be adding a lot, a little over here. I'm quite happy with the rest of the shape. If you want a more pointed and taller tree, you can use the same technique and alter the overall shape. The yellow maple and the red maple we are doing now, we painted with a shorter tree, with a huge tree canopy. Now, if you want to make your tree look more taller, you just need to go with a taller tree trunk. That'll automatically make your tree look taller. But for this, I'm going with a similar height of the yellow maple. I want a shorter tree. Let's add in the tree trunk using a darker tone of brown. I mixed Payne's gray and burnt sienna. Now, using that shade, add your tree trunk. I'm going with an irregular line. I will make my left side darker. Now I will dip my brush in a little of water and make the color lighter. Now, using my wet brush, I'm simply going to smudge the color, giving it a good shape with a lighter tone of brown. That is the tree trunk. Maybe we can add few branches. Going with the same darker tone of brown. I'm adding a branch here. Now, I will add fill onto the top as well, with some thin and delicate lines. If your brush doesn't have a pointed tip, switch to a detailing brush or any of your smaller size brush. We just need to fill over here, pick a few random area, and add one or two branches like this. That's all we need. Maybe I will add one more over here. With that, we are done with red maple tree. You can see the yellow combination and the red combination. We went into the same technique. We just changed the colors and we got a gorgeous red maple tree. Now, in the next section, we are going to explore another tree with the same color combination. Quickly, give this a try if you haven't tried it yet and join me in the next section. 10. Sweetgum: I hope you guys enjoyed painting that gorgeous red maple tree. We didn't go with much deeper tones for the maple tree. Now I'm going to show you how to paint a sweetgum tree. I'll be using the same color combination. But then this time, I will go with some more deeper tones. I have added a water drop kind of a shape here. This one is going to be my base shape. I will be adding paint onto this and just like how we did in the exercise section, I will be taking the paint outward. I will be adding some dotted pattern all around the shape to give our tree a more realistic look. All right, let's start. I'm starting with [inaudible] I'm going to apply that onto the shape. Now, in between, you can dip your brush in a little water and go with a lighter tone. I'm using the same technique I used for the red maple tree. I will be going with multiple tones of orange and rose. I'll just fill up this entire shape in orange first. I'm following the shape we have added here. I'm using my size number four round brush. I haven't changed my brush since we started the tree exercise. As the size of the trees are not that big, I can manage with the size number four brush. Also, the same brush can be used to adding those tiny details as well. This brush works quite well for me. Once we're done with the exercises, I would really recommend you to try out new color combinations. Maybe you can try out the same tree using only green color. Instead of going with the red and orange, maybe you can go with orange and olive green. Now, if you look at here, you can see some lighter tones and some white gaps in between. So whenever you are adding color onto your tree play different tones, also don't forget to add those little wide gaps in between, which is going to be your sky when we paint an entire landscape. So I have done adding paint onto that base shape. Now, it's time to go with more deeper tones. I'm switching to permanent rose. I'm going with the bolder tone of permanent rose. I'm going to drop that onto the wet orange background. Just go in a very random manner and dropping the darker tones wherever you feel like. Just make sure not to go overboard and fill up the entire orange background. We need to see that different tone add values of orange with the background and also the deeper tones of permanent rose. So all this will bring a different character to your tree. Now onto the outer shape, I'm going to add those dotted pattern, which will be my leaves. Go around the shape of the tree and add in as many as you want. Just keep on pressing your brush on the paper without lifting your hand. This is a very easy step. You need to let go of all the fill and loosen your brush strokes and keep on pressing your brush on the paper. Use the tip of your brush and repeat the same. If you keep lifting your hand, it will take forever to finish. So don't lift your hand very often. Add as many as you can in one go. There's no specific shape that you need to follow here. It is a very abstract kind of a shape. So let go of all the control and fill that well. Keep on pressing the tip of your brush. I took those pattern outside so that my tree has a more natural look. Now, I'm switching to a darker tone. I'm going to mix a little of Payne's gray into my permanent rose. Using that deeper tone and again going to repeat the same process of adding leaves. This is the color I'm going to use. It's a beautiful deep rose. I just added a pinch of Payne's gray into my permanent rose. Now, as I mentioned earlier, if you don't have permanent rose, you can use crimson or carmine. Now, let's add more leaves using this deeper tone. Once you get comfortable with the technique. It is going to be really easy. You just need to get the hang of that brush movement that are creating these dotted patterns to replicate leaves. Applying the base color is an easy task. Once you have an idea on the kind of shape you want to follow for your tree, you just need to fill up that shape but lighter and darker tone of the colors you're using. Once you have the base layer really, you just need to keep on adding these kind of patterns using the tip of your brush. This is what will give your tree a more realistic look. So keep practicing this brush movement, make it as loose as possible. Now, I will take my brush around the outer shape, and I will add more leaves to make my tree look more interesting. Now, when I'm adding these dots, you can clearly see my background has completely dried. They're not spreading into the background, but it is not making any difference to my tree. If your background is wet and if you're adding these patterns on a wet background, the colors will spread and your tree will have a more subtle look. This one the patterns are little more prominent. So you can decide on which kind of look you want for your tree and paint accordingly. If you want to apply this patterns on a wet background, you need to be a little quick and consistent. I'm feeling like bringing a little more rose tone onto my tree. I'm going to switch to my permanent rose, and I'm going to add some more leaves using my rose tone. I'm adding more onto the outer shape so that the tree is little more defined. Let's take all those leaves outward and let them grow into the air in a very wild manner. Okay, now, I'm switching back to a much more deeper version of rose. I'm mixing some more Payne's gray, and I'm going with a very deep tone. I'm going to add one last round of leaves. So these are going to be the ones, which are ready to fall. These are those leaves which are completely dried. For the rest of the trees we tried earlier, we didn't use such a deep tone. So in this tree you can see there are so many different tones of orange and rose. Now, we are going with a very dark tone, all those varying tones are making our tree look more gorgeous. There are a lot of textures and different tonal values. It's giving a lot of depth and a natural look to our tree. If you want to play with more deeper tones you could do that. Maybe you can go with a much more intense tone, which is very close to black. If you want to go with such a tone, go ahead and add some taco leaves. All right, I think I'm done with the foliage. I'm quite happy with the overall outcome. Now, it's time to add the tree trunk. So I'll be adding something similar to this one here. I don't have any leftover paints on my palette. I just put a little of orange. I'll mix Payne's gray and a dirt of orange and create a darker brown tone. That works. Okay, now, I'm going to add a tree trunk. We need a darker tone of brown. Add a line like this. Now, dip your brush and a little of water and rinse off the darker tone from your brush. Now, using light tone of brown, we'll paint the remaining of the tree trunk. Go over the very light tone, add that over here. So you have a darker tone on the left side and a lighter tone on the right side, which will make the tree trunk a bit more realistic. If you want, you can add more detail using Payne's gray and make it more interesting. Now, I'm switching to a darker tone, and I'm adding a branch over here. I will add few branches onto the foliage as well and maybe few hanging ones, like this, maybe one onto the side. Guys, with that, we're done with the sweetgum tree. So this was the fourth tree we tried. Now, in the next section, we'll be trying out some pine tree. 11. Pine trees 1: All right, guys. I hope you enjoyed the colorful trees. Now, it's time to try something in green. I have chosen four different pine trees, we'll be doing two of them in this section. Pine trees are the most popular trees among artists, so I cannot ignore them. Let's try a few of them in the fall colors. For the first two trees, I will be going with the greenish tone. I will be using sap green, then I will turn my color into olive green. It will be a transitional green to olive green. If you have tried my class on how to draw different kind of pine trees, I have taught 12 different pine trees in that class. If you want to give it a try, please do. I'm starting with sap green. I'm simply taking my brush on to either side and creating these messy lines. On the top, my lines will be shorter, and as I come down, I will make my lines more wider. I'm not going with a perfectly detailed tree. You can see the kind of lines I'm adding here. I'm simply taking them onto either side in a curvy manner. Now, I'm going to switch to olive green. I have a little of burnt sienna on my palette, I'm mixing that with my sap green to get the earthy green. I'll show you the color of that I'm going to use. This is the color I will be using for my pine tree next. Now, let's switch to olive green. In the color palette exercise, I already showed you how you can create your own olive green. I hope you have your olive green ready. Now, instead of burnt sienna you're can also use orange, as I mentioned earlier. You can try and create different kind of olive green. Now, you can see here as I'm coming down, I'm making my lines more wider. Whenever I'm adding the main line onto the bottom of that line, I'm adding teeny-tiny lines. Keep on adding branches, make them wider as you progress down. Then onto the bottom of that branches, add these inclined lines and fill that up. These are the 12 different types of pine trees we tried in the pine tree class. If you're new here, I would really recommend to check that out. It is really going to help you master your pine trees, and that will help you in your future projects. I'm reaching almost the bottom. I think I'll add one or two more branches. I'm starting with a branch, then onto the bottom, I'm adding these lines just in an inclined manner. Fill up that branch using these lines which are close to each other, and that will be our pine leaf. You can see how our pine tree got the autumn look just by adding a pinch of burnt sienna into sap green. Maybe you can add a little more burnt sienna and make the olive green more of a brownish tone, and add leaves using that as well. Try and explore different color combinations. May be you can add a pinch of orange asphalt. If you're doing an autumn landscape which has an army of pine trees, you can do them in different colors. Some of them can be more brownish and some of them can be more greenish. You can also use some orange and some reds in between. You can use the same technique and just change the colors. Now, I'm going to add in some deeper tones, I'm mixing a little of Payne's gray into that olive green I made. Now, onto these branches here, I'll add in some darker tones. The deeper tones will add a more realistic look to your tree, so don't skip adding the deeper tones. If you don't add the deeper tones, your tree will have an unfinished look. Now, you can see the background is a little red. When I'm adding these darker tones, they're nicely blending into the background. If you want, you're going to come back with another round of darker tones once everything dries. I am going to leave it here. My intention is to make you understand how to use the autumn colors properly. If you're good at your pine trees, just explore different color combinations using brown, orange, and olive green. That is the foliage. Now, let's add the tree trunk using a darker tone of Payne's gray. That's a darker tone of Payne's gray. I'm simply adding a tree trunk here, just a straight line. Once I'm at the bottom, I will make it a little thicker, and I will add these roots here. That is the first one. Now, let's try another one in the same color combination. Now, this one is going to be that really old matured tree. I'm going with the same color combination. I'm starting with olive green. Will start in a similar way how we started our first pine tree, only on the top area, we will create the foliage using those zigzag lines. As you come down, the tree will have a different look. Start by adding those zigzag teeny-tiny lines on the top. You can take it a little more down. You can see the way I'm adding my lines. They are very loose. I'm not going with a very well detailed and perfect lines. That is the area on the top. Now, I'm going to change the way I'm painting the foliage. I'm going to paint some different sections of green patches like this. That is one. Now, another patch here. As I progress down, the size of these patches will get bigger. Add them with some spacing in between. To give your tree a more natural and wild look, maybe you can skip one patch in between. I know at this point, the tree might be looking a little messy and it might be looking at a little weird. But don't worry, as we add the tree trunk at the middle, it is all going to make a lot of sense. Don't worry that messy stage in between. You need to trust the process and trust your teacher a bit. I switch to olive green and I'm adding another patch here. Now, I will dip my brush in a little water and make it a little lighter. Now, in between, if you want, you can add in some brown tones, maybe some orange tone. Those things are totally your choice. You can create whatever color combination you want. I used quite a lot of yellow and orange in the previous section, so I thought I'll go with more of green and other tones here that is why I'm not bringing in any orange color. I cannot blame you if you're wondering what am I doing. My tree is really looking weird, but here comes the magic. I'm going to add a tree trunk using Payne's gray. Just stick the line from top to bottom. Wherever you have that green part, break it and then continue. Now it makes sense, right? You can try out the same tree using the color combination we used for our maple tree: the yellow and brown, and also the red and orange. You can play with different heights as well. Try it out. Maybe you can create an army of pine tree of different colors. Some can be really old and mature tree like this, and some can be short and young ones. Now, using Payne's gray, I'm adding some branches. After this, maybe I'll add some more green patches onto the bottom. It needs some more foliage is, right? Because the tree trunk is quite tall, it is looking really empty right now. Maybe I will add one or two more patches of green over the bottom once I'm done adding these branches. Switching back to my olive green, I'm adding a patch over here. If you closely notice, you can understand that only the first pine tree we did, only that one is slightly different. The rest of the other trees were actually following the same technique. Even for this one, I'm taking my brush in that dotted pattern and creating the foliage once I have added that green patch. You can create that shape first, then onto the outer area, you need to take your brush in that pressing moment and create foliage like this. The entire class is more like a revision of the techniques we learn. Now, it looks better, right? Earlier, it was looking a little empty. Now, let's add in the final darker tones. I'm mixing a little of Payne's gray into sap green to get a deeper tone of green. Now, using this tone, I'm simply adding few dots here and there to replicate all those dried leaves. Simply run your brush around those patches we created and add few dots here and there. Be very random and add them wherever you want to. Maybe I will add a few on the top as well for this one and a little over here. Now, our tree look more defined. Now, onto the bottom, I'm going to add few branches. Just some little ones like this. You might have seen these branches on pine trees. This will make it look more realistic, so don't skip these tiny ones. With that, we are done with our second pine tree. I hope you guys had a great time painting these ones. 12. Pine trees 2: Let's try our last two trees. I'm starting by adding a shape. It's a water drop shape. For this tree I will be adding all those colors that I have on my palette. We'll be doing a very colorful tree. I'm starting with yellow orange. I'm going to simply follow the shape I have there and I'm going to add in some colors. There is no particular rule or order I will be following. I will simply switch from one color to another, and I will keep on filling the shape. Onto the outer surface, I will add that leafy pattern by pressing the tip of my brush to make it more realistic. That was yellow orange. Now I'm switching to sap green. I will add that closer to the orange. Automatically, I will get an olive green color over there. That was the second shade. Now switching to sap green again. This time I will go with a fresh sap green, so I have a nice green on my tree. Maybe I will add some over the bottom as well. Now which color we should go with? Maybe some vermilion, we'll have a bright orange over here. Just keep on switching from one color to another. Go with the colors that you have on your autumn palette. Go with some brighter, lighter and darker, go with the combination of all sort of colors. Once you have added color onto that shape, you just need to concentrate on the outer area. Keep on pressing the tip of your brush on the paper and create these leaves. Now maybe some yellow. I will add some yellow on the top. That looks nice. You can see the way how my tree is taking its shape. It's a nice colorful tree. Painting autumn is actually like playing with colors. You can create gorgeous color combinations. You need to let go of all the fear, don't be scared, give it a go with 100 percent confidence. Explore different trees with different color combinations, may be you will end up with more beautiful trees. If you happen to discover any new technique or any new color combination, don't forget to post them in the discussion section, we all would love to know. Now I'm switching to a darker tone of burnt sienna. I mixed paints gray and burnt sienna and I'm adding few darker leaves over here. Just a few over the bottom and few on the top. Now using the same shade, I'm going to add the tree trunk. That is a real tall tree. No matter how you use the colors, concentrate on the shape of the tree. You can see how that drop shape transitioned into a beautiful tree. Now let's go with the last one. This one is going to be fairly simple. We'll go with a similarly shaped tree, but then we'll only go with orange. The same tree that I am going to do now, you can explore in different colors. I'm not going to add a shape, I'm readily going with yellow orange. If you don't have yellow orange, you can mix any of your yellow and a bit of vermilion or scarlet, you will get a similar color. I know I kept repeating this quite a lot of times, but I just wanted to make sure it is okay not to have a bright yellow orange too as it is, you can mix and make your own colors. I'm going to try and create a drop shape. Just like how we did on the other tree, we'll be adding those leafy patterns onto the outer surface. Let's fill up that shape. Whenever you're painting a tree, a mountain or anything, always try and play with different tone and values. You can see here, some areas I went in with the darker tone of yellow orange and at some places I have a lighter tone. This will make a lot of difference in your painting. Your painting will look more realistic and natural. Now I'm going with the darker tone of orange, I'm using vermilion here, and I'm dropping that onto the wet background and creating some darker tones. Now, onto the outer edge of the shape, I'm adding those leafy patterns as well. Now switching to a darker tone of brown, doing the same thing again, adding some darker leaves, just a few at the bottom and on the top. When you're doing this, go in a very random manner. You shouldn't be following any order or any particular pattern. Make it as loose and random as possible. So that is the tree. Now using the same shade, I'm going to add a simple tree trunk, and with that we'll be done with our last tree. I hope you guys had fun painting this colorful trees. I'm really excited to see the beautiful trees you all will be painting. If you want me to add more trees in the same class, just start a conversation below and I will be happy to paint another the tree for you all. 13. Class Project: We tried different color combinations and different trees. For the first set of trees, we used a yellow combination. We used Payne's gray, cadmium yellow, yellow orange, and burnt sienna. That was the four colors we used for the first set of trees. Then for the second set, we've ended with that red and orange combination. There we painted a beautiful red maple and a sweet gum tree. For this set the main choice we used were vermilion, permanent rose, burnt sienna, and Payne's gray. Finally we tried four different pine trees. We used sap green, Payne's gray, burnt sienna, vermilion, yellow orange, and cadmium yellow. Now it's your turn to explore the techniques, the color palette, and all the exercises we did in this class. You can either use the same colors I used in this class or you can create your own custom autumn watercolor palette, and try out the trees we did in this class. Make them as unique as possible, put all your magic, and create those gorgeous autumn trees. 14. Next steps!: Hello everyone. I'm not done yet, I'm still here. I have an exciting news to share, so we just did the exercises. Now we need to do a landscape incorporating all the techniques and all this beautiful color combination. That is what is in the making, you will see a new class falling soon here, where we will be doing some beautiful autumn landscapes. I'm so grateful that you decided to spend your precious time watching my class. Thanks a lot for joining and happy painting.