Easy Trees - Broadleaf

 

The great thing about trees is their loose, organic shape. It’s pretty hard to go wrong. Practice doing a few of these broad leaf trees - even on the back of old paintings. After three or four you should be doing them with confidence.

Tips

• Beware of Green
  It can really become an overpowering color. Mixing in a little more Burnt Sienna keeps it under control.

• Watch your edges.
  Variety is the key word here - loose broken areas, hard sharp sections, soft lost parts. The more variation you can get into that outside edge, the more convincing your foliage will be.

• Modelling the foliage
  Dropping darker pigment into the lower areas of the clumps of foliage adds to the 3D appearance of the tree.

• Dark Colors
  Plenty of pigment, very little water and don’t rinse your brush when you go from one color to the next on your palette.

• Substitute Colors
  Prussian or Windsor blue can be used if you don’t have Phthalo Blue. Indian Yellow can be used in place of Quinacridone Gold

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