Urban Sketching Nature, Greenery and Trees

1. Intro: Hello, my name is teoh and I'm an artist, graphic designer, and urban sketch here who enjoy sketching on location. In this course, I'm going to show you the tips and techniques that I use for Sketching greenery, which is an often overlooked subject because they are in the background. So I'm going to show you my inspiration. I'm gonna teach you how to mix green using the existing colors that you have in your watercolour box. And I'm going to talk about the things that you should think about when you are sketching and painting greenery such as trees, leaves the tree trunk, Ross and all those green stuff. All the lessons are hence on an order. Reference photos are provided. And I do welcome you to share your projects, your sketches with me so that I can have a look and maybe give you some critics. Alright, Before we get started, I have a favor to ask of you. If you find is cause use Bu, do live this cause a review so that you can help other students discovered a cost. Alright, that's hit over to the first lesson. 2. Inspiration: This lesson, we will look at examples of how other artists draw nature and plants, and that includes my own sketches as well. The two books I would recommend you check out are the world of urban sketching by Stephanie Bauer and Spotlight on nature by Virginia in and Gail Wong. Let's take a look at some sketches from the world of urban sketching. This is a book I will pick off my shelf often just to flip through the pages to get inspired because there are so many beautiful sketches in the book. There are also drawing tips from all these artists. From around the wall, and you get to see a huge variety of subjects such as street scenes, interiors, nature and people. For this sketch, we can see the trees in the background and the grass are colored green. For these two trees, they are almost black. The leaves were drawn with ink and the trunk. The tree trunk looks almost black. The thing with trees is if you actually look at them, In real life, they are dark. The value is dark. You can actually draw them with just black. You can use your artistic license to have the tree trunks in white and this is usually done for stylistic reasons to create contrast. Here's another example of a white tree trunk, and this was drawn to create the contrast of this white space against the busy background. Having greenery in your scene can make your scene look lively instantly. Because green is usually a darker value, especially when they are in the background, they can help you create contrast easily. For example, this building now looks more prominent thanks to the darker background. We have the lighter roofs against the darker leaves. But if you compare the lighter roof to the sky blue, you can see the contrast isn't as great. If you don't have the trees in the background, the building doesn't stand out as much compared to having the trees in the background, to make the building look more prominent to make the building pop out from in front of the trees. If you cannot see the individual trees or the leaves, don't draw the individual trees or the leaves, draw them as a shape as a collective of shapes. If you can see the individual trees, you can choose to draw the individual trees and also the shape of the trees just to give your sketch more detail. This sketch was drawn with pen and ink with a green wash on top. This is a sketch with the greenery created with darker values that were created with densely packed hatching lines. For this sketch, the lines were drawn closely together to create this shape. If you don't draw the lines closely together, it's going to look like this. This value is not as dark compared to this. If you use very thin lines, extra thin lines or extra fine lines, the value is going to look like this. You can see this is a very light value with some texture created by the hatching lines versus this darker value. Here's another pen and ink sketch. Here the lines are used to draw the shapes as well as create the value. Creating a pen and ink sketch like this can take a lot of time because you have to spend the time to draw all those lines. I would consider this to be a very technical drawing. This is a style that I love to see, but I personally don't draw in this style because it's too time consuming to me. Notice the leaves here. They are actually highlighted by not drawing any texture on them. We can see the shadow side of the plant here, and we can see the highlighted leaves which were not drawn. This is a nice example where the trees are treated as a group of shapes. We can't really see the individual trees and notice how the colors blend very nicely very smoothly into the color for the building and this creates this big interesting shape. On the right side, we can see a standalone tree. These are beautiful sketches and painting created with opaque media, such as Posca markers and guash. I actually cannot figure out how this sketch was colored. Because if you think about it, if you draw the black line art first and color it with opaque media such as Postcar paint markers, which were used to color this sketch. The opaque paint will actually cover the line art. But for this sketch, we can see the very detailed line out on top of the paint, and it seems like the paint was painted within the line, so the paint doesn't go onto the line or out of the line. So painting these tiny areas, getting the paint into the small areas without the paint spilling out is quite challenging. I love how this sketch looks. It's just a very mundane scene of potted plants, but it looks so interesting. Thanks to the shapes and also the texture created by the paint, and you can see some graphic design elements as well, the use of this shape as a background for the wall. These are other artworks from the same artist. These were painted with wash. Notice the lack of line art. These were just painted. And the shapes that you see, they make up the scene. They create the subjects. For this sketch, we can see the tree behind the cars, and the tree is in front of the wall. There is also a tree behind the wall, and this tree is also behind the wall. Having plants and trees in your scene can actually create this foreground and background element to make your to give your scene more depth. This is a mixed media sketch with color pencils and watercolor. When you use mixed media, you can use each medium to its own advantage. For example, with color pencils, you can use them to draw lines. You can use them to to create the texture because it's a dry medium. For watercolor, you can use it to create shapes as well, such as the pots here or the leaves, and you can use watercolor to cover large areas. These paintings were created with wash and the colors are so bold, so striking. There is so much texture in nature. By using different styles of coloring, different shapes, and brush strokes, you can differentiate the different types of trees. In this scene. Notice how the darker value makes this structure pop up more and look more obvious because this is white against met value and darker value. We have two shades of green to differentiate between the types of vegetation or the trees. Notice the shading is on the lower side. This is the shadow side of the plants and the trees. That is where the leaves don't get any light and that's the darker area. Lines can represent branches, and if you pack them close enough to create shapes, they can represent leaves. This sketch was painted with negative shapes, and by that I mean the tree trunks and the building structure were left white or left as very light value to create these contrasts of flight value against the darker background, which is made up by the tree leaves. Also notice the white spots. These are the light passing through from the foliage. This catch has a good balance of contrast as well. We have the tree in the foreground with details. We can actually see the branches, we can see the leaves, and we have the trees in the background where we can't really see the branches and we cannot see the boundary. For the tree. This is nice contrast. We have detailed versus the less detailed. Notice how the colors blend very softly to create this beautiful color gradation. The nature and plants in this sketch were drawn with squiggly lines, they were drawn very quickly, and I like this style. Sometimes when you draw fast, you draw with this sketchy style, it can contrast with the cleaner and neter Let's take a look at some of the sketches I have drawn. This is the Singapore city scape that I drew on location from a hotel room. There are skyscrapers, tall office buildings in the background and low rise housing in the foreground and there are so many trees and greenery around that makes this scene look more lively. If the seascape is just buildings, it's going to look very stterile. This was also drawn on location. The green here is just one big shape. And I use green and darker green for the shadow or darker areas, and I have some line art for the trees. Trees don't always need to be green. As mentioned earlier, trees can be white as well for stylistic reasons. This was drawn on location in Bali. There is so much greenery in Bali and I still remember while I was drawing this, I was wondering if I actually have enough time to draw all the details. My sketches are usually drawn with pen ink and watercolor. But for this sketch, this was drawn with pencils and watercolor. I remember the watercolor brush that I use was so worn out that it was quite challenging and almost impossible for me to draw those sharp tapered leaves. You can see all the ink washes here, the depths of watercolor. They are rounded off. But the leaves should actually have sharp edges. If you can't get the shape of the tree right, it can make it difficult to identify the type of tree that you are drawing. Sometimes the trees or vegetation or greenery can actually block the building behind, and that can be a good thing because it means you don't have to draw all those details behind for the building. Don't be afraid to make mistakes or experiment when you are sketching or painting because the more mistakes you make the faster you learn. More importantly, you will also learn what works and what doesn't work. For example, with this sketch, my use of shapes is not that precise, so it's difficult to mark out or see or identify the individual buildings or the shapes for the trees. I mean, from afar, this sketch works, but if you look close, it's actually lacking the ship definition and the details. This is a street scene I drew on location. Again, I have trees here, which make the scene look more lively. You can also make the scene look more lively with people, pedestrians on the street, and also cars. Things that move will make your scene look more lively. And this was drawn on the second floor of a fly over bridge. I have the trees as shapes as well. This is a mixed media sketch drawn with colored inks, colored pencils, watercolor, gouache and Posca markers. In the next lesson, we will take a look at some of the tools that we can use to draw and paint nature, greenery and plants, such as the tools that I've used for this sketch. 3. Tools and supplies: Take a look at the tools and supplies, we are using this cost. Now, before you buy anything, ask yourself this question. What will happen if you run out of a specific supply. For example, what will happen if you run out of ink and this marker, are you able to replace this color easily? Before you buy your box set of color pencils or markers, do some research to find out whether you can replace the colors individually or separately because you don't really want to buy a new box of colors just to replace a few colors that you have used. So the two set supplies that I have here are a pen with waterproof ink, a watercolor sketch book, a watercolor paper pad, colored pencils and graphite pencils, my watercolor box set, colored inks, and postcar markers. If you're using inks for drawing, make sure the pen you use has ink that is waterproof when dry and this will apply to colored inks as well. I use a founding pan for drawing, so I have already filled this founding pan with waterproof ink. And if you are also using a founding pan, you can check out the list of inks that I am showing you on the screen right now, which are all safe for use in the founding pants, and these are all waterproof inks. Cold ink pens are fun to use, but they can be quite pricey. Before you buy colored in pants, again, make sure to see whether or not you can replace specific colors. This is the Duran graphic line painter. Let me emphasize again that you should buy inks that are pamented what proof? I will list the brands of some color ink pens on the screen so they can do more research on the pens that are available from the brands. Do check out more reviews online before you buy art supply so that you can spend your money wisely. I highly recommend you get a box st of color pencils because color pencils are quite versatile and they are relatively affordable. You can get a box set of 12 or 24 colors depending on your budget. We will be using pencils as well. Because I use pencils mostly for drawing, I prefer to use mechanical pencils. A wooden pencil will be more versatile because this can be used for drawing, as well as for shading. But the downside is this will get blunt quite quickly, so you will have to sharpen this more often. I like to use Posca markers to add details because the ink is opaque, which means it can go on top of other colors easily. For watercolor, you can use pen sets or watercolor tubes. Some of the brands I recommend are listed by the site. And if you want to learn more about watercolor mixing, check out the other cost that I have on watercolor mixing. The last thing I want to talk about is paper. Since we are using watercolor, you should use watercolor paper. And you can use watercolor paper pads with loose sheets, or you can use a sketchbook with watercolor paper. For bins, I recommend you use a watercolor sketch book. You can test all different color mixes in your sketchbook, experiment with different styles and effect to see what works and what doesn't. You can refer to your studies and your experiments in the future very easily. You can also use the sketchbook to keep track of your progress to see how much you have improved over time with practice. Color paper is available with two types of surfaces. There is the smooth hot press surface, which is the surface that I'm working on right now, and this actually works better with colored pencils. The lines are smoother. The other surface is co press textured surface. So you can see the lines here are rougher edges are rougher, and this textured surface can wear down or wear out your color pencils quite quickly. It's more difficult to feel the cold pressed textured paper completely with color. If I try to fill this with color, you can still see the white of the paper showing through. If you have to use pencil or dry media, I would recommend you go with hot pressed, smooth paper surface, which is easier to work with. Sketch books with smooth hot press paper are not as common compared to sketch books with co press textured paper. I'm going to list some brands of sketch books by the side here that come with hot press paper for you to consider. In the next lesson, I'm going to give you some quick tips on drawing nature and greenery. 4. Mixing greens with watercolour: This lesson, I'm going to show you how to create variations of green with colour mixing using watercolour. If you already have a Watercolour box, you can use the colors that you already have. If you don't have a Watercolour box and if you are thinking of buying new colours, or if you are thinking of creating your own palette of colors. Here are some colors I would recommend for mixing greens and you can make your color purchasing choices or decisions with the help of a color wheel, such as this one that I have here created by Bruce Mac II. I have to tips for you when it comes to choosing which colours to buy. Choose primary colours that are close to each other. On the color wheel, the primary colours would be yellow, red, and blue. So choose a yellow or red close to each other. Choose a yellow or blue close to each other on the color wheel. So that's the first tape. Choose primary colours that are close to each other on the color wheel. The second tip is to choose primary colours on the outer edge of the color wheel, because those are the most vibrant colors. You can mix vibrant colors. If you start with vibrant colors, but if you start with muted colors, well, your resulting mix will also look mutant, will look down. So let's take a look at the yellows. I would recommend I would recommend you go with Hansa yellow medium, which is PY 97. This is a nice media alone. If you want a cool yellow for nice yellow greens goal with hansa yellow light. Lemon yellow, which is PY three or PGY1 75. There is also our PGY1 Fifi, which is Nico is or yellow, which is not listed here. Nikola is all yellow is a good primary yellow for mixing as well. But for me I prefer Hansa yellow medium. So for blues you can go, they go blue or ultramarine. These are the two classic blues. I have an additional blue, which is cerulean blue chromium. So serene blue chromium is a beautiful color, which I will show you later. You can get either Pb three is six, or PB F35, which are just two variations of cerulean. This palette that I have, this is probably a cool yellow. This is lemon yellow, if I remember correctly. This is phthalo blue, French ultramarine blue. So we have one yellow and three blues. I can mix three types of ring, three variations of green. But if I have two yellows and three blues, I can make six variations of green. So the more primary colours you have, the more variations of green you can mix are also have some green colors in this pen is a sap green and this is fatal green. If you have a good mix of primary colours here, you don't actually need this convenient colours because you can actually mix this two with the yellows and blues. You have, I have these two greens here because I mix these colors very frequently. So it's good to have premix. Colors shown on the screen right now are the yellows and blues. I recommend void cadmium colors because those are opaque colors. When it comes to Urban Sketching, chances are you are drawing lines with ink or with pencil. And when you're painting colors on top, you want the line ought to show through. So use transparent colours. Don't use opaque colors that can cover your line OD, so avoid cadmium colours. Alright, now let's mix some greens. Usually I will start with yellow and paint some yellow on the paper first. And I can add some blue if I want a yellow green, I will go with phthalo, blue with hansa yellow. So this will give me the yellow, blue. And it's colour actually it looks like phthalo green. So it can use Hansa yellow medium with the little blue to mix, sorry, yeah, Hansa yellow medium with phthalo blue to mix a color that looks like they, Lou Reed. If you need to make the green darker, you can add some red. You can add this red here, which is a warm red, a scarlet, just to make the green darker. If it's to rate, you may have to add more phthalo blue just to neutralize the red. So this will create the shadow side of the tree. And you can use this to paint the darker leaves. So this is hansa yellow medium with phthalo blue. And this is the one rate discolored they have added to make the green darker. The next mixed it I wanted to show you is with Hansa Yellow Medium. Again, this is with ultramarine. It can be a French ultramarine or ultramarine blue So this green looks like the sap green. So notice that this green is not as vibrant compared to the green creator with the little blue. Again, if you want to make or create the shadow areas at some red to it. And again, if there is too much red at more blue to it, just to make the darker or create the darker greens. Lastly, let's take a look at some cerulean blue. So this again is hansa yellow medium, and this is cerulean blue. This is a nice green. This is a yellow green as well. I'll say it's in-between ultramarine and phthalo blue. Same thing if you want to make the shadow or create a shadow areas, you can add rate. In this case, I will add blue and some red to it. Just to create the darker areas. I mean, haven't used too much water here. It is difficult to mix a dark Karla with cerulean blue, which is why I'm using blue instead. Let me show you what you can get if you use a warm yellow with a blue for mixing greens. So this is new gamboge, which is yellow and warm yellow. Or you can consider this and orange as well. If I add some phthalo blue to it, you can see the green is trying to mute it. It's not as vibrant compared to mixing this green with phthalo blue and hansa yellow medium. So this green looks kinda muted. If you want a green that looks mute, or if you want look to be dry. Like for example, if you're appending plans in desert or dry areas, this could be a good mix for those dry ponds. This other greens I was able to create with Hansa yellow medium to get away with feel blue, ultramarine, cerulean, blue chromium. If you are using another yellow, you will be able to create another set of greens with the blues that you have. So all of the four mixes that I have here, if you want your yellow to look, yellow green, I will recommend you go with Hansa, yellow medium with the little blue, cerulean blue. If you want your green to look dry year, if you want your green to look a bit muted, you can use yellow with our trauma. And now let's paint the tree trunk. For tree trunk, it's first important, usually I go with burnt sienna. This is how burnt sienna loop. And if you want to make your tree trunk darker, you can add outro marine. So this is just burnt sienna and this is ultramarine. With some burnt sienna. Outro marine will neutralize burnt sienna to create this darker gray color. If you want your branches, oil tree trunk to show more brown. Just at mall. Been to see if you want your branches or the tree trunk to be darker. Just add more ultramarine. This is the mix that I always go to, the French ultramarine and burnt sienna mix. Another thing to note about colour mixing is trying not to mix your colors to completely in the Color Palette, such as what I'm doing here. Because you can see this wash. If you mix your colors to completely, this wash is going to look flat. So this wash here is not as interesting compared to this wash on the left-hand side where you can see the individual colours are pigments that we're used to create this wash. So to make this wash more interesting, you may want to charges additional color while the wash is still wet. But it would be good if you can have the colors mix on paper so that you don't have to do this. Which can sometimes be quite tricky. So it's easier to mix the colors on the paper, then on the palette, and then makes it on paper. The next few lessons will be quick tips on sketching and painting nature and greenery 5. Painting leaves, branches, tree trunk: This lesson, we are going to paint trees and we are going to create the pockets of light that passes through the leaves. So if you take a look at this photo, you can see the leaves. They don't actually cover the sky completely. There are empty areas where you can see the sky, where the light can pass through. Same applies here as well. Here you can see the blue sky. Of course, if the leaves are too dense than the light won't be able to pass through. Even for this tree, you can see the light passing through the bottom of the tree where the leaves are not as dense. And for this tree, the leaves are quite sparse. So let's draw this tree for practice. So this is gonna be a very quick sketch. And another tip I have for you when it comes to drawing or painting nature is note that there are no straight lines in nature. So when you are drawing trees and branches, make sure the lines are not completely straight. And even if the line looks very straight or the curve looks very straight or to smooth, sometimes I may introduce wobble or jitter, or doesn't make it a branches turn more. Rather than draw the straight line which will look unnatural. You can always use your artistic license to make lines less straight. For example, if I draw the crowd here straight, it doesn't look as interesting compared to making it less trade. In this case by introducing some grass or maybe have the ground, the line 2D, certain direction or certain angles. What is tree? I'm going to start by painting yellow because yellow is a colored that is quite easy to dirty. So I like to have yellow first on paper and make sure you leave areas of white for the light to pass through. It will be good if you have a brush with a sharp point so that you can create the leaves. Okay, I think this should be enough. Next I'm going to add some phthalo blue. Just a bit of blue, just to recreate the green. Mixed a green. Again, pay special attention to leave pockets of light. Lift the paper white. Fellow green is a very vibrant color that has high tinting strength, so you don't have to use that much. Phthalo blue. Hello, blue is the color with high tinting strength, which means you can use a bit of phthalo blue and you will be able to get that intensity, get the extra vibrant colors. So don't use too much, they will do is going to overpower the yellow very quickly. So just leave pockets of light, areas of white. I may also want to just have some splatter of color or spots of color outside. Just to create the leaves, just to suggest leaves. The bottom of the tree we will get less light. So I want to make the bottom darker by adding more blue and scarlet red. So by adding more blue and scarlet red, which will neutralize the blue, you can get the darker greens, you can make the bottom darker. And you can make one side of the tree darker. If the lysosome coming from the other side. Let me finish up by painting the grass on the ground. You can use the same green to paint the grass on the ground. If there is casts a shadow, you can use this darker green to paint the cast shadow. Now for the tree trunk, let me use ultramarine and a brown, the burnt sienna. Just to pin tree trunk. If you need a tree trunk to be more brown, just add more burnt sienna. And if the light source is coming from one direction, maybe the light source is coming from this direction. You can make the other side of the tree trunk or the branches darker. Once the wash has dried, you may want to add some branches, but you have to make sure to watercolour is drivers. Otherwise, if you draw the branches, the color is going to blend into the leaves, which is not going to look nice. So I'm going to draw some very thin branches. Just a few branches, just to suggest the branches. Okay, I think this sketches done, here's a comparison with other trees that I have painted earlier. So this tree with the pockets of light definitely looks more interesting compared to the trees here where the shape is just solid. So this tree is more interesting than these two, because there are pockets of light. Pockets of light candles will be created using the branches, believed and Trees. So you can draw the branches in a way that pockets of light can show through 6. Drawing recognisable shapes: Lesson, we are going to focus on drawing shapes. Let's start by drawing a very simple tree, a coconut tree. This photo was taken from the ground level looking up. When we draw the tree trunk, there are some lines or some rings. Those rings are actually curved if you are looking up. I will want to draw those rings with very thin lines so that they can contrast with the thicker lines of the exterior of the h. Okay. And for the leaves, when you're drawing the leaves, make sure you study how the leaves branch out from the main branch and try to draw the shape as you see. Okay. This is a coconut tree, which is easy to draw. Now for this branch here, you can see the leaves actually branch out from this side. Some of the leaves are almost perpendicular, but some are not. I may want to add a thicker branch here. A branch here. Pay attention to the angles between the branches, for example, the angle between this branch and this branch, this branch versus the tree trunk. Okay, so this sketch is almost done. Once you're done with this, you can actually paint it. I will leave this sketch as it is. Okay. Try not to go over the lines again and again. For example, when you draw a line like this, try not to draw another line directly on top because it's going to make your sketch look bad. Let's see if we can simplify this coconut tree any further. So I'm going to imagine this tree is actually very far away. Remember when you're drawing lines in nature, note that there are no perfectly or completely straight lines. This single line is used to represent the tree trunk and I'm going to use another line for the leaves. Okay. So this can be a coconut tree from very far away. When you are drawing a tree, make sure the shape is recognizable, even if there are no colors. Let's draw another tree. This one seems to have a flat top. Pay attention to how the branches branch out. Some of the branches are actually overlapping. If you can see how they overlap, you can draw the overlap. But if you can't see how they overlap, you can just draw the shapes between the well, shapes. Okay. So I have some branches here. And now I can draw the leaves. This is a tree with a flat top. Sometimes I like to introduce little dots for the leaves at the edges. Again, while you're drawing the tree, make sure the shape is recognizable. You can also introduce some trunk branches This branch looks kind of thin, so I may want to make this slightly thicker. As the branches move to the edge of the tree, the branches will become smaller and smaller, so that's something you should know. Okay. And sometimes the bottom of the tree, the tree trunks can be black or the color that is very dark, that it looks like black. So you can actually, in this case, color this black. Let's stop here so that I don't overwork this drawing. Let's draw another tree. As you are drawing the trees, pay very special attention to the tree or the subject that you are drawing, draw what you see, not what you think you see. Pay attention to how the branches branch out, pay attention to the shapes created by the branches, such as this enclosed shape here and as the branches branch out, make sure the branches are thin Notice this line here that I've just drawn, this is two straight, this looks unnatural. Use your artistic license to make the line straight lines less straight. When you're drawing the thin branches at the top, you can hold the pen more vertically to draw the thin lines. Okay. So I have drawn the tree trunks and the branches, so now I can draw the leaves. Now try to draw the leaves with different styles just to see what works and what doesn't. I can see the boundary or the edge of the leaves here. I'm going to draw this edge here and see if it works and it seems to work. I'm drawing with ink. Now, if you're painting the leaves with watercolor, you may actually skip the ink part and just paint the leaves with watercolor. The inking part for the leaves may not be necessary. Let me add some little dots for the leaves. Now for this second tree, maybe I'll try a different style. Maybe I'm going to use this gribble style just to see the effect. Try different styles to see what works, what doesn't. Even for me when I'm drawing or painting trees or greenery, I'm experimenting with different styles just to see what works. When I find a style that suits me, I will stick with that style. So notice this tree looks different compared to this tree on the left side just because of the way I drew the leaves. The style actually does matter. Lastly, let me try watercolor on this tree here at the bottom. This is not watercolor paper, so the watercolor doesn't flow that well, here I just want to draw the shape of the tree of the leaves. It looks fine. It actually looks fine. Remember to leave pockets of light. This actually looks better than I expected. This is the style I will go for. If I'm experimenting with different styles. So for me, the shape created by all these qugly lines. It doesn't make this tree very recognizable. This tree here still looks right, but it's difficult for me to differentiate the leaves from the branches because this part here can also be leaves. Maybe I can color this. Let me just color this and see whether it works Now, when you are painting watercolor try to paint with one stroke or one continuous wash when one continuous wash can work. Because if you paint with multiple washes or multiple strokes, the art, the wash is going to look patchy, splotchy. That's not what you want. Now after painting the leaves, you can tell where the leaves are compared to the bottom of the tree. Now, for this particular tree, the leaves are denser at the top, so I may want to make the top darker. Yeah. Just make the top darker. Let me introduce some little thoughts as well for the texture. Make the top and the bottom lighter. Okay. Let's see if it works. This does not work. This works the best, and this looks all right. Now that I have these two to compare, I can say that it is actually not necessary to draw the boundary for the leaves. Because when you paint the leaves, the watercolor will create the shape, so you don't actually need to use the line art to draw the shape. So that extra step of drawing the boundary is not necessary. If you are drawing a coconut tree, you can draw the tree trunk. But you don't have to draw leaves with ink. You can actually just paint the leaves with watercolor. This will actually help save you some time when it comes to drawing plants or trees. 7. Project overview: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to use all the things that we have learned so far to create a pen, ink, and watercolor sketch of this sin, the workflow that you are about to learn is the same workflow that I use when I'm sketching on location. For this lesson, we are going to sketch with ink. We're going to paint with shapes. We are going to think about light and shadows, and we're going to add textures. This is the reference photo we will be using. And you can download this photo from the downloads section. Let's look at the tools we'll be using for this lesson. I have two cups of water, a pen with waterproof ink. I have to watercolor brushes here, a flat one and a round one. I will mostly be using the round brush for this exercise. Don't use paper that is larger than A5 size because what we're trying to do here is to understand the workflow and also practice color mixing. So if things don't go as expected, you can always start on a new page. And when you're working on a small piece of paper, you wouldn't have wasted too much time. The colors I'll use for painting our Hansa yellow medium, pyro, scarlet, French, ultramarine, and burnt sienna. If you don't have this colours, don't worry, you can use whichever yellow, red, and blue that you have in your palette. Just make sure those primary colors are transparent. Let's look at the scene we will be Sketching. So there is a building here which is facing the front. So we don't really have to worry too much about perspective. There are trees in the foreground overlapping the building, and there are trees in the background and also behind the building. So what a trees in front, we will need to give them more details for the trees in the background, we just need to suggest them. Some parts of the Greenery are under the sun and some are under the shadow. So this is where we will practice mixing shadows for greens. So let's get started. 8. Project: Creating the line art: Let's sketch out the scene very quickly. So we have tree here on the left side. I don't worry too much about the accuracy. Just try to get all the elements are in position. So we have another tree here is either branches and there are some leaves on this tree. And bottom of the tree will stop here above the other tree here, which is on the left side. We have another tree here. On the right side. We have this building here. And this is the roof. Now this is an in xin. What Asian proofs. So there are a lot of towels. Don't worry too much about it. Towels just draw the shape and suggest details. So just make this quick sketch. What's important here is to get shapes, right? And also where the trees are. K, This is the, I'm gonna use little dots here to mark out the bottom of the house where the plants are M, I'm going to use little dots here to mark out the pathway. And this line will suggest pavement here, and this is the root. And there are some trees in the background. So that's draw those branches. While we are drawing the tree trunk and branches, make sure to draw what you see, not what you think you see. If the branches are quite thin, you can just use a single line to represent a branches. The branches are thick. You can use two lines to suggest a left and right edges, the branches. So usually I may draw the wave of the branch with two lines. And when I get to the top where the branches branch out, I would just use a single line for those tiny thin branches. K, Let me use some lines to mark out the greenery behind just little lines because we can paint the shape later so we may not even need the outline for the, for the leaves. So what I'm doing here with all these little dots and shortened lives is really to mark out the location of the leaves to remind me where the leaves are, where the leaves start and where the leaves will end. Okay, So this building will end here. Now you don't have to add too much details to this building. You can add the mean, just add the door, maybe add some window. But you don't really have too much detail because the objective of this lesson really is to paint the Greenery. Okay, so this sketch is pretty much done SUR are sketching the trees in the background. Pay very special attention to where the bottom of that SRY will. And so for trees that are further away the bottom may n.next actually hired YouTube perspective. And this may vary depending on your eye level. So again, draw what you see instead of what you think. You see. We have not tree trunk here and some leaves here. 9. Project: Adding colours: Make sure that ink is dry before you paint. So now I'm going to use this spread to wet the paint. If you don't have this, you can always use your watercolor brush to add drops of water onto the paint. I'm also going to spray some water here that I'm going to use. We have watercolour, we paint from light to dark, so we'll paint a lighter areas first, such as the sky, the roof follow up by the greenery. So I'm going to use a little bit of ultramarine to paint the sky. And this will overlap into the leaves. Make sure you paint a space between the tree trunks. And next, I can use this ultramarine together with burnt sienna to mix the roof. Here. Actually, I just want to use these to draw the towels. If this paint goes into the sky, it's gone to bleed into the sky. So try to avoid that if you can. Let me separate roof from this guy here, this H, I see some red that is used for the door frames, so I'll Windows. So let's paint at the rate. The rate is dilute it slightly and mixed with the other colors slightly. Again, you don't really have to make sure this is as accurate as possible compared to the reference for you. While we're trying to do here really is to practice color mixing. So don't worry too much about getting your details, right. So when the windows and doors are dry later, we will paint over this area under the roof to make this darker because it's under the shadow. Next we have mixed greens. So I'm using Hansa yellow medium here. This is hansa yellow medium. I'd like to put some fresh colours on the ground here on the grass. And I'm using a lot of water. So later when I have to green, the green and blue can mix together on paper. So I like to do this. I have some yellow sky here in front of the sky actually. And once you are done with Adding the spots of yellow, you can add Ultramarine in my mixing. Well, I tried to keep the yellow on one side and blue on the Arthur's. So if I need my mix to be more yellow, I will move over to the site which has more yellow and use that. And if I need more green or blue, I will use the other side. You will probably need a lot of paint for this segment or this stage because this is a big area and we also have leaves in the sky. I mean leaves on the tree which are higher up. So if you have more ultramarine, it's going to look like this. So let's try and keep this area OBS too dark. Let's try and keep this a rear much lighter. Let's have some blue here. Now, while painting tried to capture shapes, I'm going to have the green overlap, the abusing like this. So I wanted to have some of the green overlap, the beauty like this. So later when I paint with black, I can actually have the black cut into the green to create doors. Strands of our blades of grass. That's keep this H here, type and sharp. And we have greenery here. There seems to be a line here in the background. So let's try and keep that line. What I mean is this line. So there seems to be another path or walking path here, which is why there is a line and there seems to be an open field there. So let's have this are the line in the background as well. Don't worry if you go over the Tree trunk because tree trunk is actually black. So when you paint black over the green later, the green we'll not be seen. So don't worry about painting over the tree trunk. We can actually see some of the sky here, but I had left that out. So maybe our paint or at the blue later. Here. The thing we've trees as you will always see, little pockets of light passing through. So it's good to have those little pockets of light. There are leaves here as well. Try to keep this or pain this as a shape. And remember to leave some space between the leaves to suggest the sky. Research tree behind as well. There is, there are leaves here on this tree here and a tree behind. And I need to cover this area as well. Now this front part here, which is the rod, will be the same gray here, which is ultramarine and burnt sienna. So this is almost dry now and I find a white on the roof, a big glaring. So I'm going to use that outro memory and punish sienna mixed hue paint over this guy. So Adding a secondly year here. And I'm going to use this mix as well to paint the roof here that I left out earlier, and also the bottom of the roof for another building which is behind that I left up. And I can use this to pain and the walking path here. This will be ultramarine and burnt sienna. If you don't have burnt sienna for some reason, you can always mix the three colors, yellow, red, and blue to get there to get that gray. So again, when the wash is still wet, tried to charging some color just to give variation to provide variation of for the wash, for the shape. And I have some green here, which is actually not very visible because this whole area is kinda dark. Anyway, I can add some green into the walking path or the root here as well, because there are actually some plants growing between the gaps. I can charging some green here. Next we will paint the shadow area under the roof. And for this we will need to use a lot of ultramarine and burnt sienna. And again, if you don't have been sienna for some reason, you can always mix your grace with yellow, red, blue. And if you find that your mix is not the right color, you can always at more of the other colour to a complement, sorry to balance out. Auto neutralized the other colour, the wash. So once you add the shadows, your sketch, we'll start to come to life. Just make sure that shadow is noticeably darker compared to the roof because the roof is under direct sunlight using the same mix that I have here, which is ultramarine and burnt sienna, I can use that to paint the tree trunks as well. So if there is more row for the tree trunk, you can add more yellow ocher or burnt sienna. So this is the first layer. If you take a look at the reference photo, you will see that a tree trunks are all moles, black. Like it's so dark that you can't even see colour. So I'm painting the first layer. And notice for the leaves here, I did not draw the outline for the leaves. So I'm actually just painting the shapes for leaves and for the trees that are in the background. But for the trees in the foreground, the leaves in the foreground. You have to add a bit more detail. Here. We have some branches here as well. While we are painting the branches in the background, make sure the lines are thin. And make sure that the angles of the branches are going in the correct direction so that they look like branches. And branches are not straight lines. They are not straight lines. Okay. And now we have with for this to dry before we painting additionally years. Now I may want to work on the roof a bit more just to give it more details. So I may want to pin those roofed house again because it seems like my initial wash is kinda light. So now I want to paint that tells again, just to have more details. You can see the initial washer, it's kinda light. So if you did it right at the first time, you don't have to do it again, like what I'm doing right now. Okay. This part here, this part here on the right side is under the shadow of the trees. So we will wait for this to dry before we paint or at shadows on top of the roof here. So using the same gray wash that you have mixed with ultramarine and burnt sienna, you can paint the background as well. Buildings in the background 10. Project: Adding shadows: If you squint your eyes and look at the reference photo, you may note is the area under the roof is almost as dark as the shadow area under the trees, the shadow area in the foreground. So if we look at the sketch that we or I have, now, it seems like this era is not dark enough. I'm going to paint a shadow area in the foreground now and have look and see what happens. So for the shadow area in the foreground, I'm going to try and mix that. We have the three colors, yellow, red, and blue. I'm going to test out the mixture in a small area first just to make sure I have to correct shadow colour mixing shadows is kinda scary. Sometimes. You can see I have a bit more right here. Now this shadow color doesn't look like what I want. So instead of using yellow, red, and blue to mix the shadow, I may just want to use ultramarine and burnt sienna instead. Alright, so this is ultramarine and burnt sienna mix. And I have a long more burnt sienna here, which is why it looks brown. So now I add a bit more ultramarine. Here. I may want to have some leaves on blades of grass here and here as well. Okay, this is still too much burnt sienna. So I may want to add again more ultramarine. So this E right here. It's kinda difficult to differentiate the bottom of the tree from the grass or the soil. Okay, well, this part has wet. Make sure you go over this very quickly, otherwise the hot ages will form. And I forgot to leave some pockets of light on the ground. So make sure you leave those little pockets of light, which I left out by mistake. So for the bottom of the building, again, I'm going to add another wash just to make this slightly darker. Next we will paint the really dark areas like the tree trunks and Windows. So for that, I will use ultramarine straight from the pen. If you find that color too concentrated or too saturated, you can add some burnt sienna to neutralize that. Just makes sure the value is dark enough because it has to be very dark. So you can see here it's still kinda lights. So I may really need to add more ultra. Need to use more ultramarine to make this really dark. This photo was taken during noontime. So there is no obvious site of the tree trunk that is lead by light. Whoops, I actually painted outside the tree trunk. So images pin this knowledge, this. So while you're painting does be careful and remember to leave the gaps for the sky to pass through. Sometimes when I paint it to slow the sketch doesn't look that great. So I mean, one to paint a bit faster here. So this is almost black. And this tree behind has certain areas that are black as well. And here as well. Hey, let's see where else we need the branches. This area here, we shouldn't be able to see the boundary for the bottom of the tree and wrote. So let's try and mix this up like this. That's paint the little windows here. You see the red that I use for the window frame that's almost gone. But doesn't matter. Let's just go with we have so far Okay, We have the black thing with ultramarine is it's very difficult to mix like a complete black. I just realized that this is actually a full height window or door. Anyway, doesn't really matter. While we are trying to do, as I mentioned many times, is really to practice color mixing. So now let's mix or use the same dark mix to paint the strands of grass so we can have the black go into the hopes that grass. Take a look at what you have so far and see whether you like the colors that you mix. So I don't quite like the shadow area that I mixed here with ultramarine and burnt sienna. So for the green areas here, I will still need to add more darker values. So I will try and use more ultramarine instead, more ultramarine with a touch of burnt sienna. So this will be the darker abs. I can use this to paint little details. What leaves? So certain areas are darker, so this is just ultramarine on top of green for the plans are leaves on the tree here again, I can use ultramarine to make those areas darker. And I can use the same ultramarine to add details, like the blades of grass. Now, if you are unsure, always test your colors in a tiny area first before you paint them on top in the center of attention. So this area here is lacking in detail. So let's add some ultramarine to make the areas darker. Tried to treat shapes, the leaves, sorry, the tree as a shape because you can paint the individual leaves obviously. So you have to treat this whole area as a shape. Little details here, and leave those pockets of light. So this area here with darker, with more ultramarine. We have some depths of green here. We can have the green go across this. We have some green here as well. On darker greens switch I'm painting with ultramarine. And once again, you can use ultramarine to add little details like this. Now you may also want to have some shadows here and background. Be here and here. And maybe some details here. There needs to be a darker line here. So let me just use ultramarine. Oops. So I'll painting, there is a lot of obscene moments for me. So notice I tried to draw this line several times, is actually better for you to tilt the paper and just draw one straight line across like this, which we'll look more confident. The last thing I wanna do is to add some texture with splatter marks. If I have a clip, I will run my watercolour brush against the clip. If I don't have a clip, I will just run my watercolour brush against the pen tip. Make sure to clean the pen tip later on to prevent a pen tip from clogging false splatter marks. Well, you can try any color you like. For me, I will go with this darker color, which is French ultramarine and burnt sienna 11. Project: Adding textures: The last thing I wanna do is to add some texture with splatter marks. If I have a clip, I will run my watercolour brush against the clip. If I don't have a clip, I will just run my watercolour brush against the pen tip. Make sure to clean the pen tip later on to prevent a pen tip from clogging false splatter marks. Well, you can try any color you like. For me. We'll go with this darker color, which is French ultramarine and burnt sienna. If you want to have fine splatter, don't have too much water on your brush. Building is actually desert it. So there is a lot of overgrown grass. So I'm going to add some overgrown grass on the pavement. This area here looks unnatural with the white, which looks quite larynx. So I will want to just pin this diluted green on top. But I still wanted to keep some of the white. Maybe not so much. So this sketch is almost complete them, you can use your pen to add more details. I'd like to use the pen to add some little dots to create additional texture on top of the splatter marks. Because it's kinda difficult to control the splatter with a pen. It's easier to control where the details will go to. The roof seems to clean. So I may want to add some splatter marks as well. Notice the splatter going on to the sky. So splatter marks are kinda difficult to control. So let me try and keep the pen tip as close as possible to paper. So this is the completed sketch. I feel like more details can still be at the, so let me try and add some white to certain areas for the window here, sometimes I use my white gel pen, sometimes I use is light blue, extremely light blue pen soldiers to add some texture. So I have the pockets of light on the ground, but unfortunately, I don't have them here. So I may want to add them. Pencil, but it's not going to look as good compared to this. When it comes to painting trees, you don't always need to draw the outline. So for me I just use little dots to mock out the boundary to know where the leaves will end, where the sky we'll start. And I drew the lines for the tree trunk. But notice when I paint over with the darker paint, the lines disappear. So you may not need to draw those lines. But again, I use those lines to mark out the boundary. For the blades of grass. You don't have to draw lines with black. You can suggest them with paint. And those textures, they are very lovely. So on a small piece of paper like this, you really cannot add much details. Here. You really have to focus on the colour mixing. Here we have to shapes in the background that suggests leaves and we have pockets of light again. So notice on the left side I don't have those pockets on light. I should have left more white areas, those little white areas here. Here we have to pockets of light where we can see through the leaves to the sky. This is really nice. And we have actually just two layers here. We have to firstly year, which is a mix of yellow and ultramarine. And second layer, which such as the darker the shadow side of the US. And notice here, we don't really see the transition from the tree trunk to the leaves. When painting, it's good to have hot ages and ages and ages are areas where we can see the boundary very clearly. And soft edges are areas where you cannot see the boundary. It seems like the colors are blended together. So for example, I can now see the bottom of this tree and the ground here and this era here for the tree and house in the background, this is kinda difficult to see properly because this is just one darker area. Whereas in the reference photo you can see the tree is clearly in front of a lighter area. So to make this tree stand out, I may have to add some I have to make the area around it lighter. I'm not sure if adding this white pencil will help. Probably not. So I'm just going to leave this as it is when you try to correct your mistakes, sometimes you can end up making things worse. So you may just want to leave those mistakes as they are. This was a really fine sketch to paint. And for this sketch I use hansa yellow pyro, scarlet, and French ultramarine and burnt sienna. If you happen to have another set of primary colours, you can redraw the same scene and paint using the other set of primary colours. For example, I have another set of colors with a AZO, yellow and truck. We night sky alert and they loop news. So I can use those three primary colours to repaint the same sketch and look and feel is good to be quite different. So for your exercise, try to repaint the same scene with another set of primary colours 12. Outro: Thank you for joining this course. I hope you have enjoyed the course and you're now more familiar and confident. We have sketching and painting nature and Greenery. Do send me your sketches and your other projects because I would love to have a look and maybe I can give you some tips and pointers on how to improve Going forward to improve on your own, at your own pace. I recommend use sketch and paint a variety of plans trees, because that's really the best way to get more practice and to learn more about nature. Alright, before you go, I just wanted to say one last thing. If you enjoy sketching and painting with watercolour, do check out the articles instead. I have. Alright, see you in the next class. Bye