Easy Acrylic Autumn Leaf on Water Painting 🍂💧 | Step-by-Step Tutorial #art #painting, by Art Acrylic Painting on YouTube. 4 min 20 s.
- Video length
- 4 min 20 s
- Time to do it
- 30 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 9
What you need
Steps
Squeeze a small blob of each colour onto your palette. Keep the blues on one side and the warm yellows, orange and burnt sienna on the other so they stay clean.
Load the flat brush with deep blue and paint the upper area of the paper where the water will be darkest. Work quickly so the paint stays wet.
While that blue is still damp, add cobalt blue and a little white and drag the flat brush sideways. The colours blend into a soft gradient from deep to light water.
Mix warm yellow with a touch of orange and paint the leaf shape in the middle of the water, leaving the pointed tip of the leaf unpainted.
Drop burnt sienna along one side of the leaf and blend it in with the round brush. This gives the leaf its shadow and makes it look like it sits on the surface.
Add a small dab of warm yellow on the lit side of the leaf for a highlight, then rinse your brush before going back to the blues.
Switch to the round detail brush with light blue mixed with white. Paint thin curved lines around the leaf to suggest soft ripples spreading outward.
Use the tip of the round brush and burnt sienna to draw the veins from the leaf stem toward the edges. Keep the lines thin and slightly uneven.
Let the painting dry flat for about 20 minutes before you handle it, then add a second light ripple layer if you want more depth.
Tips and common mistakes
Keep the water background wet while you blend, or the blues will dry in hard stripes.
Wipe your round brush on a cloth between ripple strokes so the lines stay crisp.
Paint the leaf slightly tilted rather than straight up, since a floating leaf rarely sits perfectly upright.
Test your blues on scrap paper first, as deep blue straight from the tube can look almost black.
Questions
Can I paint this on canvas instead of paper?
Yes. A small canvas or canvas panel works well, but the paint dries faster on canvas, so blend the water area in smaller sections.
How do I make the leaf look like it is floating?
Add a soft shadow of burnt sienna under the leaf and a few light blue ripples touching its edges. The gap of darker water around the leaf does most of the work.
Do I have to use all six colours?
No. Cobalt blue, white, yellow, orange and a brown will get you close. Deep blue simply makes the water richer.
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.
