Trees & Foliage, at 'FARP'

Tools:

1. For brushes I have my beloved fan brush, which has been permenantly stained green from all the trees I've painted, a #6 round for washes and thick limbs & trunks, a script liner for branches, twigs, etc, etc, and a flat bristle brush. I like use the bristle brush for pines and firs and for scrubbing up color.
2. I use Cotman watercolors and have had good fortune with them. My greens are sap green, hooker's green deep and phthlo green. I also have various blues, reds, yellows, umbers and siennas to my palette. I like lots of colors. I don't use white, except in special circumtances, instead choosing to use the white of the paper.
3. Frisket or mask is used to preserve the white of the paper. I like Winsor & Newton Art Masking Fluid. The only other one I've used is Grumbacher Miskit Frisket, which is pink and when it gets old it smells like trout bait.
4. Watercolor paper. I stretch 140 lb. and tape it to 1/4 in. plywood.

Step 1:

   When it comes to watercolor you pretty much have to draw in all your lines and have a good idea what you want to paint. Watercolor is transparent so if you mess up its pretty much all over. You often times can't go back over the area to fix it. Draw lightly, and try to erase as little as possible. Erasing can damage the paper. I draw on a separate piece of paper then transfer it to the watercolor paper using graphite transfer paper. Makes nice, crisp lines. Then I mask out any parts I want to keep white or want to keep the color off of for now. Masking fluid can also be placed over an existing color to keep other colors from going over it.

Step 2:

   Always work front to back with watercolor. Paint in the sky first and then the background and foreground. Unlike acrylic and oil painting, which works from dark to light, I always lay down my lightest color first, gradually building up to the darker colors in layers. This way I will achieve the vibrant transparency. With watercolor I paint the foliage first, and add the trunks and branches in afterwards.

Step 3:

   Now that I have the scene drawn out and the bottom wash laid down, I can now build up on the color to create the foliage. Because watercolor is transparent, it is a must work darkest to lightest, else there may never be a chance to fix it. To do the foliage I take out my beloved fan brush and load it up with color. I keep the brush slightly wet at this point, because the slight wet-on-wet technique makes a really nice base for the leaves. As I build up, I wipe the excess water off the bristles to go more drybrush.

   I continue to build up my darks on top of my lights. I use the round and the script liner for painting in my trunks as well as a bit of the groundcover I've started on.

If there is a light tree in front of a darker one, it is sometimes necessary to work from front to back to make sure you don't accidentally cover up the lighter tree.

Step 4:

   When I first started I masked out the parts of the peach tree that I intended to be blossoms. I use the fan brush to fill in the mass of peach tree leaves with a light green. Then I take of the mask and voila! Clean white blossoms! To make them and the light color leaves around them stand out more I use my small brush filled with a darker green to outline and make little indications of shadow.

To add more blossoms where you didn't mask out the white take a scratch tool and pick out a couple spots. Or -and this is where I break my rule about using white- use white straight out of the tube.

Step 5:

   For the long, slender fronds I switch to my script liner again after laying down a broad light green wash. First thing I do after that is load my brush with a slightly darker green. I make long sweeping strokes that will be the base of the leaves with the side of the brush. Around the leaves I build up the darks so that the fronds will stand out.

Fern leaves and palm tree fronds can also be painted by using long strokes with the script liner brush.

Short grass can be made by loading a fan brush with color and pushing it up against the paper.

Step 6:

   I always save my figures for last. So after I have all the plants and whatnot filled in, I remove the rest of the masking fluid and paint in the rest of the details.

And done!

All final details are added and the picture is signed. If you would like to view a larger version of this picture, just click here