Watercolour Greenery Part 2: Basic Leaves & Branches

1. Intro: Hi, I'm Sharone from Sharone Stevens Design. I'm a watercolor artist, illustrator, and modern calligrapher. This class is Part 2 of my series, Into Watercolor Greenery. If you haven't seen it already, Part 1 was focused on mixing our greens from color theory to color charts with some time spent in the middle on experimenting with our pallets. The classes in this series are designed to be able to be watched on their own. You don't have to have watched Part 1, but you may find it useful if you want to know more about mixing a variety of greens to make your work look more interesting and perhaps more realistic. This class will be focused on basically some branches. It's ideal for beginners or anyone who just wants to master those leaves that we see all over Instagram. We'll take some time to practice some brush exercises that will help us paint these leaves. Then we'll look at different shapes and styles of leaves that we can paint using these simple strokes. We'll then combine these leaves to create a range of different branches. For the final project, we'll be painting this leaf here. I'm really excited about this class and I hope you are too. Grab your supplies, and let's get started. 2. Supplies: Hi everyone, and thanks for joining me in this class. Firstly, for supplies, you'll need watercolor paper. I'll be using cold pressed, but you can use hot pressed or rough it doesn't matter for this class. You may find it easier to practice on either hot or cold because there's less texture to contend with. I definitely recommend that you use decent quality paper, at least 140 pounds weight to make sure it's nice and absorbent. The quality of your paper will affect your results. I'll be showing you a comparison of this later in the class. I'll be using Langton 100 percent cotton color paper. You'll also need round brushes, ideally a couple of different sizes. I'll be using a size 4 and a size 0. Then later on in the branches, I'll also be using a size 2-0 which is my smallest brush. But this is totally your preference. If you'd like to work bigger, choose larger brushes, if you'd like to get smaller too, choose your smaller brushes. I tend to fall in that latter category. As for paints, you can use whatever water color paints you want to. There is no requirement for this class. I'll be using my professional Winsor and Newton tubes, amazing chiefs instead of plans for this class, as I want to make a larger volume of paint on my palette. Finally, you need a glass of water and it's handy to have a paper towel. The final thing I'd say you need is a bit of patience, particularly if you're going to be doing the brush exercises. The aim of these classes is that you paint along with me. I'll be doing these brush strokes with you. We really want to focus on getting these techniques right. You can make these leaves as kind of neat and attractive as possible. I love painting leaves. I find that incredibly therapeutic and I hope you do too.. Let's move on to our brush exercises. 3. Brush Exercises: Hi everyone. Welcome back. In this video, we'll be practicing some basic fresh exercises that will help us paint the leaves. I've just divided my page into six sections to keep it nice and neat, and I'm going to grab some of my paint. I'm going to use an indigo for this. Just so you can say the shape of my stroke, nice and clearly on the page because it's a really nice deep dark color. But you can use whatever color you like, it really doesn't matter. We'll start by painting some thin lines using minimal pressure to the tip of our brush. This is a size four brush amazing. I'm just applying lightest amount of pressure to create this nice and even line. If you feel like you've got too much water on your brush to seizure paper towel to just dab it slightly and take off an excess water. Just practice these strikes. Try and keep your hand nice and steady. We'll be using these lines for the stems of our leaves and branches. Just keep practicing, keeping your hand nice and steady. Painting thin lines, they're nice and even thickness all the way along. Now, pick up your second brush and do the same again. This time I'm going to be using a size zero. Since a thin brush and white hold of match has the size form, so I have to apply it more reckoning. Now, we've practice our straight lines. Let's get back to our large brush and practice making these curved, which is the more natural shape of a branch. Let's just curve around. He can see this brush holds quite a lot of pain and managed to do older days without relating. Now swap back to your smaller brush and do the same again. Now we want to practice applying and releasing pressure with our brush. So go back to your larger brush again. We'll just keep alternating between these two just to see what they can do. Make sure your brush is loaded up with pigment, rolling it around in the paint so it's fully coated. Now touch your brush lightly to the paper to start with and then start dragging the brush along. As you do, slowly apply pressure, and then slowly start to release this pressure until you come to another fine point. After every one of these strokes, I'm reloading up my brush with a touch of water and the pigment. One more of these and then we'll switch to our smaller brush. My brush is starting to get a bit dry now. I'm just going to add some more water. Depending on the type of brush you're using, the quality of your brush, it can be really important to make sure you have the right amount of water when making these strokes. If you have too much water on your brush and it's fully saturated, you won't be able to get these nice sharp points at the beginning and the end. You may even end up with a pool of water in the middle once you start releasing the pressure and this can be made worse if you're using cheaper watercolor paper. Here is an example on some cheaper paper that I tried these strokes out on. You see because the paper's not as absorbent, it left those pools of water when I released the brush and once it dried, it's created these really harsh lines which aren't particularly nice. Just remember, to take the excess water out of your brush and just slow those strokes down and that should help. But if you can, I would recommend investing in some better watercolor paper, if you keep having that problem. This is certainly something I want you to be aware of. Particularly if you're a beginner because the paper you're using can significantly affect the results you're getting. I really don't want that to put your off watercolors, as I know it can be quite frustrating when you're not getting the results you want. Now going back to the bigger brush, that's practicing same stroke again, but this time adding a curve to it. So load up your brush. Start with the fine tip. Start to apply that pressure, and then start curving it round and start to release the pressure. With the same brush, just practice making more of an S shape. So adding two curves. This time I'm going to start applying the pressure, start curving it around, and then as I release it, curve it around the other way. Now go back to your smaller brush, do exactly the same. Going back, to your larger brush again. Now let's practice adjusting the pressure to change the shape of their stroke. Starting with the fine tip, increase the pressure. But then as you release it, just drag it out a bit further. This shape is rounded at the base rather than in the middle. A bit more like a tear drop shape. You can flick the top round to make it a little bit more wispy. Or you can curve it round. Have a play around. Now get back to your smaller brush and do the same again. Finally, I want to practice controlling this stroke by moving it slightly to one side or the other. All of these strokes so far have been even on both sides. But now what we want to do is create one straight edge and one curved edge. I'm going back to my larger brush, again. Starting with that fine tip as before. But when I start to apply the pressure, I'm going to move the brush slightly to the left. It remains straight on this side. It's curved on this side and straight on the right side. I'm just moving the brush slightly to the left, concentrating on keeping that right side of the brush straight. Practicing that just allows you to have more control over the brush and where it's going. It's such a tiny movement. Now we're going to roll it the other way. Now I'm moving it to the right and creating that nice straight edge on the left side. Now, move to your smaller brush again. Then moving to the left and then coming up. Then the other side. Last stroke and we're done for our brush exercises. Hopefully, you've done this with me and you've got a nice, lovely page of different strokes. I'd love to see it so please do upload it to the project gallery. If you have any question at all about the strokes, please just drop me a message in the discussion board. Next we'll be moving on to painting our basic leaf shapes. 4. Leaves Part 1: In this video, we'll be using the strokes that we practiced in the last video to make some simple leaf shapes. We'll also be looking at how we can add definition and movement to them. At the end of the class we'll have a page full of different leaves. I've divided my page into six sections again. I'll be using the same brushes as before. My round size 4 and size 0. Grab two of your brushes, your preferred sizes, it's up to you what you choose. I've just put some sap green on my palate and mixed in with some whimsy yellow and some yellow icon to make a couple of different greens. We'll start with leaves that have just one brush stroke, which will be very similar to the strokes that we practiced in the middle of the last video. But this time we'll make them look a bit more leaf-like with that definition and movement. I'm starting with my bigger brush again, my size 4. I'm just going to start by painting a simple leaf with a slight curve. Then I'm going to pick up a slightly darker green. Adding a bit more of my sap green into the mix. I'm just going to add some definition to this leaf starting at the tip and just running up one side. Because it's still wet is blending in nicely. We're just going to add a little at the top here too. Just start by practicing these simple single stroke leaf shapes. Adjusting the pressure, adding in curves to create your shape, and then adding in some definition at the tips and all the edges. You can add these little flecks which make it look like the leaf is bending over a little, just play around and see what works for you. You can change the direction of the leaves. All these subtle changes when combined will really make your branches look much more interesting. It's really good to practice. Once you've done a few of this, change over to a smaller brush and do the same again. I'm just adding a little more sap green to my palette now. Just pay attention to what's happening on your paper. The biggest tip I can give you to improve your water color is to pay attention what's happening with your painting and respond to that. I can show you techniques and my processes and what's happening on my paper and how I'm responding to that. But because we all have different paints, different paper, different brushes, we're using different amounts of water, everything is reacting differently. You really need to learn how to respond to it. We want to try make these leaves as smooth as possible. If you notice any harsh lines forming where you have too much water just spread it out. If you make a mistake by going outside of your leaf, just make the leaf bigger to cover it up. If your leaf is dried and that second layer isn't bleeding in naturally, just use your brush to spread the paint down evenly. Make sure your brush is fairly dry and plane for this so it doesn't disturb the rest of the leaf. If you need practice in doing this you can have a little look at the technique section in my feathers class where we cover painting smooth gradients. Is one of the most useful things I can recommend you to practice as it really makes a difference to your work having these smooth transitions. Now let's move on to making leaf shapes using two brushstrokes. We'll be using the technique we practiced in the last video where we made one side of the stroke straight and the other curved. Paint in your first stroke and as you apply pressure move the brush slightly to the left. As you release the pressure bring it back again so the right side is straight, making a nice fine tip. Then starting from the base, do the same the other way, leaving a thin gap of white and then bringing it back to meet at the top. This gap, the white of the paper here that we've left will act as a center vein of the leaf. It really helps to have control of your brush to get this gap nice and thin. Practice making different shape leaves with these shapes, rounder, longer, thinner. You don't have to have the bottom or the top meeting, but it's good to have at least one of them touching so they look connected. You can change the length of this gap, this center highlight for different effects. Now switch to your smaller brush again and do the same. Okay, so now let's practice adding some movement into these leaves. One of the ways we can do that is by moving this center line over to one side or the other. To do that, all we need to do is make one of these strikes thinner than the other one. That will give the illusion that a leaf is folded or you're looking at it from an angle. We can also use those curved strokes that we practiced to make it look like the Leaf is bending over. Then start with a slightly curved strike, and then for the second strike I'm going to make this thinner. So now kind of looks like you're looking at it from an angle, from the left side. So again, I'm going to draw just a thin line, so what I'm doing now is apply pressure straight away and then [inaudible] So I'm just mixing all these on my palate, so I have a nice spectrum of greens I can use, from the sap green to the more neutral mix of the sap green and yellow icon. I'm going to start with a thin line over to the left slightly. Then I'm going to make one on the right much thicker. So when you combine these to make a branch, it's really good to have a variety of these leaf shapes as they will really make your pace much more interesting and give it much more movement. So I'm just mixing up some sap green and burnt umber now to get this nice darker green to use on the tip for that extra definition. I'm just using a clean and dry brush. Now just to go all over this to blend into the rest of the leaf so it has a nice smooth transition. Now just do the same with your smaller brush, I haven't left much space here. So I'm just going to do a couple. 5. Leaves Part 2: Next let's do something slightly different. Now we're going to paint the whole leaf, starting with the anti strokes and filling it in.Then using nice fine lines we practiced, use the tip of your brush to add in a little stem. Still a couple more of these. Now I switch to a smaller brush again. Next we're going to do the same style of leaf again. But this time we'll be adding in some more movement. So bending it over slightly in one direction or adding more of a wispy curve to the top. Just play around with the shape, make some more round or a bit thinner and longer. Do the same with a smaller brush. So in the last section, we're going to paint these leaves again, and this time we're going to paint in for simple vein details, also first layer has dried. Start by painting a few of the different shapes. Do this with a smaller brush as well. I've left these for a few minutes to make sure they're completely dry. We need them to be completely dry because we want the veins to be really fine and crisp lines. We don't want them to bleed in at all. I'm using my smallest brush now my size 2/0. I'm just going to pick up a bit of a darker grain. On the first one, I'm just going to paint the central vein in starting from stem just going over that and going all the way to the top with a nice fine line. Then the next one, I'm going to do the same but I'm only going to take this vein halfway up. Next, I'm going to add in a few lines of shading starting from the base. I'm going to darken the tip as well with a few of these fine strokes. I'm just playing around here looking at ways to add some detail to these basic leaves that will make them stand out a bit more. Just have a play around. The next one I'm going to paint the central vein and again all the way to the top. Then I'm going to add in some very fine veins either side. You want the lightest touch of your brush hair. Working your way up the other side, doing the same. I'm going to use a bit of yellow ocher for this one. Just adding in some veins halfway up. I keep playing around, trying different things to see if there's a particular style you like. I'm just going to get back to this first one and add in a few slightly border veins. Now we're done. Hopefully, now that we've had this practice and created quite a variety of different leaf shapes in the most basic form with these simple strokes, and we've made these subtle changes which has given them much more movement and definition and a little bits of detail. Hopefully, you feel confident now in creating leaves. Now let's move on to combining them into branches. I'll see you in the next video. 6. Branches Part 1: Hi everyone, welcome back again. In this video, we'll be combining those leaves that we just practiced into branches. So the aim of this lesson is to create a whole page of different branches. You can play around with different shapes, different sizes, different colors, and see what's possible. Then you can use it as a reference guide later on when you want to add some branches into your work. So I have added a variety of colors to my palette, so I've mixed some yellow and greens up here. So this is Windsor zillow and sap green, and this is lemon yellow and sap green, and this is sap green and yellow ocher. So that's a bit more darker neutralized version, and then I've got a variety of blue greens over this side. Parisian blue, windsor blue, and indigo. Then I've got Olive green here. For the branches, I tend to use either a green, the same color as a leaf, or a slightly darker version, or a brown. I'm going to start with a very basic branch in green using my size full of brush here. Then I'm just going to paint a nice thin line, curve it around, then coming off from the branch I'm going to add another leaf fan on the other side, and then one on the top. So nice and simple to start with. Because this is still wet, I'm just going to add a top chin to the top of these leaves, definition onto the base. Next, I'm going to take some of my Burnt umber and paint a branch with this, this time and cut around a little bit. Now what I want to do is I want to create a variation in color of these leaves. I'm going to start with more yellow, a green at the base, moving into a darker blue at the top. I'm going to grab my mix of Windsor yellow and Sap green. Now using another brush, because I don't want to keep washing my brush and waste all this paint, I am going to pickup Burnt umber, I'm going to draw in the branch connecting that leaf. Because it's still wet, is created this nice blend in here. I'm going to add another one to the other side. So I'm painting these fairly close to the branch. A smaller brush I'm using is my 2.0. Now I want to move slightly darker. That's quite dark, I'm just going to lighten up a bit this side. It's a bit more gradual. Then again, connecting it to the branch. Then making the next one even darker. Then finally, I'm going to have quite a dark blue green at the top. It's going to painting that stem in. Okay. I'm just going to add in one more here. Going back to this Matte green. Don't be afraid to go back in and neaten up any tips or edges. There you've got a nice change in tone going out from these nice yellowy greens to this really dark blue-green. Next I'm going to go back to that single brushstroke that we started off with. I'm going to use Olive green for this. This is the Ironing green I actually tend to use on its own, although I do sometimes just add a touch of yellow ocher in to neutralize it. I'm going to pick my branch, and then dilute my brush a bit more. I want to add in some range. I'm going to start right from the stem here, and then curve upwards. One thing you want to remember when painting the branches is that, plants grow towards the light. So all of these branches, they should really be slanting upwards, or at least the beginnings of them should slant upwards. The leaf can fold over, that's fine. But it won't look particularly realistic if the branch is coming out straight or pointed downwards. I'm going to just use another brush to add in another color over here. Some of this indigo to make it darker, want to be careful not to contaminate to these areas, otherwise my greens are going to start to look quite muddy and brown and dirty. I'm just going to add a touch of this in. That's my indigo with my Olive green. I touch more to make it darker as we get to the top. What you can do is, when that is dry, you can actually go in and start choosing one of those mid darker colors. I go in, and I overlap this leaf. I'm going to do one more here. That's it I'm going just to do one more at the base. So adding a little of more [inaudible] of as one of the first colors. I just want to even out a bit more. That's actually a really lovely color, we like them. Now here it's my mix of sub green and yellow icon. Draw my brown top here, and I'm going to water this down, one bit more watery, a little bit paler. I going to actually just leave that as branches, and I'll probably come back and add the veins and awesome definition to that later. I've just grabbed a second bottle of water, my first one is getting quite dirty quite quickly. Now I can just keep this one for making sure my brush is clean when I'm adding a new paint. Next, I want to paint a thinner darker leaf. I'm using my round 4, but because this brush, it's got such a nice tip on it, I can still create these fine lines and fine leaves, find strokes without having to. I'm keeping them fairly consistent for varying angle slightly. I'm not using too much water here, I want to have nice amount of control with my brush creating these fine strokes. I'm going to use the same dark green, so this is mixed brown amber to create a nice big branch. I'm going to finish this one. But I'm going to continue using this brush, and then just make sure I have my smaller version at hand to paint in these branches. Now I wash up my brush. For this lemon yellow, mix, this time I want a nice. What I'm going to do for this one is paint branches coming off the main stem. So I'm going to have three branches here. Again, I'm going to add in another branch, I'm going to color up this way. I'm just going to clean my brush because I want to add in some of this dark green. I'm going to add in next one, so I can blend in a little paler in. Now, I want a branch coming off of the main branch, which is going to be slightly overlapping. I'm going to curve this round. Now I know where the overlapping leaf is, I can finish off this main branch. We want another couple of branches even here on it even out. I've just dropped a little bit of paint here, it's not too bad, so I'm going to add a bit of clean water to this. I left off my paper towel. 7. Branches Part 2: Next, let's create another one in this style with these block leaf shapes. I want a more bluey green this time. We haven't use much blue yet. We want a nice variety on the page. I'll start by painting a short branch. This is a really lovely bluey green. This is when the yellow mixed with Persian blue. If you've seen part one of my greenway series on mixing greens, you will have seen just how many greens you can make using mixed like this on the spectrum from the yellow to the blue. If you need any help with understanding of greens [inaudible]. I'm offsets the Web and just going straight back in and add a little more this color to make the edge bit darker. Maybe it's not blending in for you. Just clean your brush and spread it out evenly. I'm using the Persian blue, to do this. It's bending in naturally because that first layer is still wet. This one's a bit dry now. I'm just going to add some at the base. Then clean my brush and dry it. Then blend in. Remember, you want that always dry brush so you don't disturb the layer underneath. Now i'm going to do another branch similar to this one, but using a lot more of my blue greens this time, i'm going to grab a bit of my brown amber again for the branch. I'm going to keep that brush loaded and ready to add a nice little stems for each leaf. Going back to my size for now, for the leaves. Just going to add a bit more Winsor yellow next to these blues. I'm just having a little mix around here to make some more greens in my palette, that I can draw. Very nice bluey green here. Next here i'm going to use this thin single stripes to create again to create a more yellowy green brunch. Then I'm just going to add a slightly dark green into the base of each leaf and at the tip spacing such for definition. I am just going to blend any areas in that haven't blended and naturally. Second property fit a couple more of this page, so I am going to do another small leaf branch in this corner using a more neutral dark green. Now, I just want to add some veins into that earlier branch. So I'm going to check this is all dry, and lay my clean paper towel down to make sure that I do not smudge anything with my hand, and just add in some fine line starting with that center vein. I am adding this vein slightly off to the left so that it looks like this leaf is at a bit of an angle. Sometimes it's just the subtle things that can transform how your piece looks when you add it all together into a finished piece. Am just darkening up this branch now. I think one more in the top right corner and maybe one small one in the top middle. So I'm going to turn my page upside down now for the last one, do not feel like you have to keep your page static, just move it around to best suit you and what you need? What your painting? I usually move my paper around much more than this, than I do in these videos, but obviously I just want to keep it nice and still for you. So you can see what I'm doing. For the final one, I'm going to go for one of these more neutral greens. So there we have it, our page is now complete full branches with a variety of shapes, styles, and colors. Hopefully this fills you with lot's of inspiration for your work, please do share your pages with me, I'd really love to see them. Now, let's move on to painting our final project. 8. Wreath Part 1: Hi, everyone. Welcome back. In this video, we'll be painting our final project, which is a wreath. Looking at the branches we just painted, have a look and see what inspires you. I quite like these two so I think I'm going to paint a wreath with these branches coming off the main branch. First, grab a bowl or solid type or something circular to draw around. I have these metal circles from my die cutting machine I use. They're really handy. Grab a pencil with a fine tip. I'm using my mechanical pencil. We just want to draw the circle in lightly to use as a guide, but we don't want it showing through at the end. Make sure you don't press too hard. I'm going to be using my smallest brush, my size 20 for the branches, and my size 4 again for the leaves. I'm going to use brown and buff for the branch mixed with some Sap green to get this woody neutral brownie green mix. I'm going to start with painting along this pencil line. I'm going to do this in small sections at a time because we want some of the leaves to overlap the main branch. Then I'm going to paint a fairly short branch outwards, not going too far out, as I don't have too much space at the top or bottom of my page, and I want it all to look even. I want to start with mixing this lemon yellow and sap green to get this really pure muted green. I'm going to aim for about three different greens here that I'll alternate between. I'm going to paint my leaves in around this branch so that I can join them up and get that bleed from the brown into the green, which looks really nice. I'm going to paint three leaves here. If you don't want that bleed, you can just wait to connect the leaves when they're dry, or just go right up to the leaf. Now, I'm going to paint a branch from the inside. I'm going slightly over the pencil line here so that I overlap that main branch. Then, connecting them. Now, I'm just painting the main branch around this leaf. I want to make sure that leaf is dry so it does not bleed in and adding another branch on the outside. Now, I want to start making this green a bit darker. I'm going to use the sap green with a bit of indigo. Just get switching between your two brushes, painting the leaves, and the branches. [inaudible]. I want more of a mid-green now. Try and keep roughly the same distance from the circle as you go round so that it looks nice and even. Every so often, just pause, take a look at how it is looking over. It's easy to get carried away just focusing on the leaves. But you want to make sure you're getting this really balanced look. I don't want to come out too far here. These are quite close together over here, so I just need to bear that in mind. The next ones I'm going to do, I'm going to come in a bit more to balance this part. I'm going back to my warmer green now, my more yellowy-bright green, so I have a nice variation of color. Now, I'm going back to my indigo mix. Just vary the branches. Some have one, some have two, some have three leaves. Add a new curve so that it will settle changes as we practiced earlier while in the class, to make it look like there's a nice move going on here. I'm going back to my mid-green again now. 9. Wreath Part 2: So we're just going to continue working round adding in these branches, alternating these greens. I'm just going to start turning this round to make it easy for me to paint. Just keep rotating your greens, a few leaves in one color and then move on to the next. I'm just going to have another quick stop and have a look and check if it is balanced. I'm happy with this. I'm going to get back and add another leaf, over here, at the end. I'm just going to add a bit more lemon yellow to my pallet for my yellowy green mix here. I just smudged that so I'm going to go and make that leaf a little bit bigger to fix that neatly up. I'm just going to go back and neaten this up too. I'm using my paper towel to rest my hands so that I don't smudge my work. Let's have one final look on this wreath to see if something you want to tidy up or you want to add anymore leaves in to balance it out. I'm going to add one in here, maybe a couple more elsewhere. Okay, so now we're done. If you've painted this wreath with me, well done. I really can't wait to see it. 10. Final Thoughts: Hi everyone. Congratulations. You've now completed the second part of my watercolor series. I really hope you've enjoyed it and you found it useful. I'm really looking forward to seeing your work, so please do share it in the project gallery. If you want any feedback or have any questions, please do drop a message in the discussion board. If you're on Instagram, please do tag me in your work so that I can feature you in my stories. You can also use the #learnwithsharone, and you can follow this to see more tips and tutorials, and other student's work. Make sure you click that "Follow" button so you can receive any news and updates that I have, and you'll also receive notifications about the next class in this series. Finally, if you've enjoyed this class, please do give me a thumbs up and a review. It's really useful for other students to see, but it's also really encouraging for me when I'm creating future classes. So keep on practicing and I'll see you in the next class.