Painting a Tree with Watercolor: Tips and Tricks
Jun 17, 2024If you’re interested in painting landscapes, one watercolor subject you’ll want to practice over and over are trees. Painting a tree with watercolor and knowing how to group trees and foliage in your scene are essential watercolor landscape skills.
So today we’re going to cover how to paint watercolor trees. In this video and blog, I demonstrate:
- How to make trees look realistic,
- What process to use to paint trees,
- Which watercolor pigments to mix for trees, and
- How to create depth in paintings with trees.
Keep reading for watercolor strategies that will improve the look of your watercolor trees.
Watercolor Painting Trees
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3 Tips on How to Paint Watercolor Trees
1. Paint trees in a series of washes.
From your first wash, think in terms of light and value. Trees are more than just shapes, they are objects that absorb and respond to sunlight. They have a light side and a shadow side. And they should contain a whole range of values - lights, middle values, and darks.
Look at the watercolor painting process depicted above - specifically the trees on either side of the house in this painting. Notice the layering of different values throughout my process: I started light, added mid-tones, and then darks and details. I didn’t try to depict the entire shape of the tree in the beginning, but allowed it to take shape throughout.
2. Keep in mind these basic rules.
Some basic rules when painting trees are:
- Branches should be smaller than the trunk.
- Limbs that shoot off from branches should be smaller still.
- Taper the branches so they become more narrow at the end.
- Ground your tree with a shadow.
3. Aim for an organic look.
Remember that trees are a part of the natural world, and they will look more realistic if their boughs are arranged in an organic way. This means less straight lines and more curvature, less exacting measurements and more randomness.
To achieve the kind of looseness you want, hold your brush further out and paint small, broken lines rather than straight lines.
Mix up your approach. First, hold your brush right up to the trunk of the tree and make a nice, swooping line away from the tree. Then take the opposite approach and create some broken lines starting some distance away from the tree. This will help shake things up a bit and make it look more natural.
Creating Depth with Watercolor Trees
I want you to take a look at this reference photo I used to paint a landscape recently.
Notice how there are trees all over the scene. How do you distinguish between the trees that are closer up and the trees that are in the background? How do we create some order and separation between the background, the middle ground, and the foreground so that our painting does not feel disjointed and overworked?
So the tendency is to really overwork groupings of trees and to add way too much detail. I want to show you how I painted the scene and how I was able to create separation and organization between the background and the middle ground.
Here is what it looks like after I painted the first wash at my scene, I laid in some soft color for these trees.
Now I have the job of really beginning to paint the background and organize the painting. The temptation is when we are painting the background that we really want it to look like something, but we can paint it in a very minimal way where it can serve the purpose of a background.
I start on the left and my goal is to see and paint these trees in one big group. Also note how I handled the background of this scene: I cooled the green down a little bit, which makes it feel further away. Both of these choices help that background recede into the distance.
Next, I work on the trees that are closer, I add saturation and vibrancy into that mixture. This little change automatically helps us create a feeling of depth.
As I get closer still, I once again add saturation and leave behind a little bit of that light that I left in the first wash of the painting. Now I'm massing trees together, organizing, and finding connections. I cool the background down. I have more saturation.
Mixing Greens for Trees
Let's talk about what color mixtures I'm using.
My standard green that I start with is Cobalt Turquoise and Raw Sienna.
To cool down the background. I mix in a little bit of Cerulean, Lavender, or some Ultramarine Blue. This gives me a little blue tinted green that I can use for the background.
When I want more vibrancy, then I can take that same mixture and add some Cadmium Yellow Medium. This is great for the middle ground.
And then if I really need to push that color, I add in a little bit of Cadmium Yellow.
So take a look at your paintings and think about how you're painting trees. See if there are any ways that you can simplify and bring more life and vibrancy to your trees.
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