Individual species of trees have distinguishing growth patterns and silhouettes. This exercise is to help you practice adding realism to your landscape art by depicting trees accurately. You can find reference photos of different tree species on line, or in seed and nursery catalogs.
Concepts: Recognizing differences in tree silhouettes, painting trees, using sponge, brush, and spatter to paint a tree.
Materials: Watercolor paints, including blues, greens, browns, yellows, a pencil, brushes, cellulose sponge, tree reference images, watercolor paper.
Concepts: Recognizing differences in tree silhouettes, painting trees, using sponge, brush, and spatter to paint a tree.
Materials: Watercolor paints, including blues, greens, browns, yellows, a pencil, brushes, cellulose sponge, tree reference images, watercolor paper.
A live Oak tree has a broad, umbrella shaped silhouette. The trunk is usually short, and begins to branch off low on the trunk.
You can paint a tree using the side of the brush, or the tip of the brush. Hold the brush loosely and let the paint blend on the paper. Decide which direction the sun is coming from and paint that side in lighter colors.
Mix some burnt sienna and cobalt blue to form a grey. Trees trunks in Texas are usually some shade of brownish grey. Use a small brush to paint the branches. change to a rigger to paint the small, fine branches.
As an alternative, you can use torn bits of a new kitchen sponge to stamp the foliage on the tree. A squirt with a sprayer will help the colors run and blend. Do this GENTLY. Do NOT over blend.
Lacebark Elm: The Lacebark elm is basically an oval, with the bottom part of the foliage a little narrower than the top. Branches come out of the upper trunk in a fan shape. The Branches appear relatively high up on the trunk.
| 
Live Oak branches tend to form low on the trunk, and to extend parallel to the ground. They are often twisted and gnarled.
While the paint in the foliage drys, you can use the side of the brush to create "grass" below the tree. This is also a good time to add spatter to the tree and grass area.
Add some shadow under the tree with more blue and brown. A squirt with a sprayer will help the colors to blend. Add more spatter as desired.
Variation: You can make your tree appear to be standing over its reflection in a pond. After you have painted your tree, spray the area below the tree to wet it. Use a brush to drop in the colors of your tree. Take a clean brush and dip it in clear water. Draw a line of clear water across the upper edge of the pond to mark the area between pond and land. 
Begin to apply foliage and trunk paint to the tree. I am using a brush and an occasional squirt from the spray bottle. You could also use a torn kitchen sponge to paint the foliage.
|
While waiting for the elm to dry, I started a Bald Cypress. Bald Cypress trees have a pyramid shape.
| 
I added greyish branches and shadows to the elm tree. Bald Cypress trees have a more reddish trunk than other trees, so I used more burnt sienna in its trunk.
|
I finished the trees by adding shadows and spatter.
RSS Feed