Loose Watercolor Tree Painting | Easy Landscape Tutorial for Beginners | Step by Step, by Mani Artworks on YouTube. 15 min 8 s.
- Video length
- 15 min 8 s
- Time to do it
- 30 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 8
What you need
Steps
Tape your paper to a board so it stays flat. Sketch a light horizon line about one third up the page and a soft circle where the tree crown will sit.
Mix a pale blue wash and paint the sky with a large wet brush. Leave patches of white paper for light and drop a little warm yellow near the horizon while it is still damp.
Paint distant coastal hills or a shoreline with pale grey-blue while the sky is still wet, so the edges soften into the background.
Load a round brush with warm reddish-brown and pull the trunk upward in one or two confident strokes, splitting it into a few branches.
Mix a light yellow-green and a deeper blue-green. Dab loose clusters of foliage around the branches, leaving gaps of paper and sky showing through.
While the crown is still damp, drop darker green into the shadow side so the colours blend. Then let the whole painting dry completely.
Add foreground grasses with quick upward flicks of a drier brush. Start dark near the base of the tree and use lighter strokes further out.
Finish with a few thin twig lines, small leaf dabs and light spatter for texture. Let it dry flat before you peel off the tape.
Tips and common mistakes
Keep to three or four colours so the painting stays fresh and unified.
Stop touching an area once the paint starts to dull, since overworking turns greens muddy.
Tilt the board slightly so washes flow and blend on their own.
Test your green mixes on scrap paper before you put them on the tree.
Questions
Do I need to wet the paper first?
Not the whole sheet. Keep the sky and distant hills wet so they blend, then paint the trunk and foliage on dry or barely damp paper so the shapes hold.
How long should I wait between stages?
Let the tree crown dry fully before adding grasses or twigs, which takes about 10 to 15 minutes at room temperature. A hairdryer on cool speeds this up.
Why do my leaves look flat?
You probably used one green everywhere. Use a light yellow-green for sunlit areas and a deeper blue-green for shadows, and leave small white gaps between clusters.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
