How to Pay Tribute to Earth Day by Doing a Watercolor of a Tree

Step-by-Step Guide

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   Step 1: Assemble your supplies.

   You'll need watercolors, a round, #10 pointed brush, a long, narrow haired, liner brush, a piece of 11 X 14" cold pressed watercolor paper (either pulp or rag content,) a rigid support board such as foam core, slightly larger than your paper, clear water and a piece of cast-off terry toweling to catch drips and wipe your brush.  Optional;  a "rake brush" for grass, a natural sponge and a shaker of salt finish the supplies.
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   Step 2: Activate your watercolors

    If using tube paints, squeeze out primary and secondary colors, plus brown, on the edge of your palette, keeping the center of your palette clear for mixing. ,  This tree could have delicate blossoms, as well.  Look at your paper and use either format, horizontal or vertical.  Picture a tree with approximately a 3/4" trunk and, without drawing first, fill your brush with clear water and make three long strokes of water.  The water should almost be rising off the page. ,  Use a partly water filled brush to gently touch the water already there and pull it down for the tree's base. ,  This will exploit the action of the brush and make graceful, tapering branches.  Using a slightly wet brush, pull from the existing trunk shape and pull water into three large limbs.  If the water is drying up, just add more with your brush.  Remember, wet areas will remain enclosed where you have put them if you are careful not to jiggle the paper. ,  As things begin to dry, just continue to add more water, going back over the same places that are already there.  Taper and make smaller and smaller branches until you have a full umbrella of branches.   If you run out of paper on some edges, let the branches continue, don't try to cramp them to fit them onto the paper. ,  Fill your brush with one of the colors and touch it to the tree you've drawn in clear water.  The color will be carried by the water to other wet areas of the tree.  Immediately do the same with blue and yellow.  You are mixing brown directly on the paper.  If a pigment is hesitant to mix, just add more water and coax it along with your wet brush.  Let the water do the work for fresh and lovely results. ,  If necessary and for fun, gently lift the painting, on the board, and rock it gently to move the water to all parts of the tree.  Again, help it along with more water and more diluted pigments if you need to.  It will start to dry and be a lot lighter, so now is the time to hit it again with color.  Soon the entire tree will be appearing on the page. ,  Try to keep tapering them to be smaller and smaller at the ends. ,  The shine will begin to diminish and go dull and that is the moment to salt the tree trunk.  Leave it alone and as it dries, texture will begin to appear as the salt draws the moisture to itself making star like patterns.  You can use the hair dryer to speed up the drying. ,  Wet the sponge piece you have torn from the larger sponge and wring it out.  Touch it lightly, letting only the highest fibers contact the green and yellow.  Dab the ends of the branches with this sponge, turning your hand as you go to avoid stamping the same pattern each time.  Allow the leaves to dry. ,,  This is simply a flat brush with undiluted paint on the ends and running that brush quickly over the grass area.  It will skip leaving some areas unpainted and paper showing.  Do the same thing again, going in a side to side direction.  Use a "rake" brush to make grass and weeds.   Use the liner brush to make wild flowers and dandelions. ,  Pull a small dab of pigment onto the mixing part of a clean palette and add water.  Use your round, pointed brush, holding it at a steep angle to get a wide, side stroke and put water on the sky areas of the paper.  If thoroughly dry, the under painting will not be disturbed, if you use a gentle touch and go quickly.  Flood the light blue paint onto the sky, working the color in and around the branches. ,  Go back in with a darker value or shade of the base color to accent the leaf clusters, the blossoms, the tree trunk, and the grass clumps.  Find a gray color on your mixing area and use that to "ground" your tree.  Paint an amorphous shaped, transparent, shadow under the tree quickly and in one or two passes.
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   Step 3: if dry

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   Step 4: pad paint

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   Step 5: put a few drops of water on each pad.

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   Step 6: Think of a naked tree in early spring

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   Step 7: just at the point of bursting into foliage.

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   Step 8: Work downward to create the slightly flaring base of the tree.

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   Step 9: Turn your paper and work upside down to make the tree branches.

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    Step 10: Continue to draw branches coming off the main limbs.

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    Step 11: Add color by pulling red

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    Step 12: blue and yellow onto your palette's mixing area and add a small amount of water until it is the consistency of cream.

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    Step 13: Enjoy watching the color move over the wet areas.

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    Step 14: Pick up the "liner" brush

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    Step 15: wet it with water and pull from the limbs to make finer and finer branches.

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    Step 16: To develop texture with salt is a matter of timing.

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    Step 17: Bring spring to the tree by printing tiny leaves with a natural sponge.

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    Step 18: Make blossoms by doing the same thing as in the previous step

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    Step 19: but using pink and lavender.

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    Step 20: Paint the earth beneath the tree by using a technique called "dry brush."

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    Step 21: Do the sky with diluted blues.

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    Step 22: Allow the piece to dry thoroughly and take a good look at it.

Detailed Guide

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