I Learned Beginner and Intermediate Watercolor!, by Marvelous Muglestons Art on YouTube. 11 min 27 s.
- Video length
- 11 min 27 s
- Time to do it
- 45 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 8
What you need
Steps
Tape your paper down and mix a few autumn colours on the palette: a warm red, an orange, a yellow and a brown. Keep the mixes light so you can layer them.
Paint the Armstrong maple first. Load the brush with red and orange and build the canopy as a rounded mass, leaving small gaps of paper for light.
For the sugar maple, use a wider mix of orange, yellow and red. Dab the brush to make a broad crown, then add a short trunk underneath.
Paint the aspen with a tall, narrow trunk and a smaller crown. Use light yellow and orange dabs so the tree looks slim and upright.
For the Japanese maple, make a low, spreading crown with deep red and orange. Keep the trunk short and add a few thin branches.
Once the beginner versions are dry, try the intermediate Armstrong maple. Layer darker red and brown over the first wash to add depth and leaf clusters.
Repeat the layering on the sugar maple. Add shadow on one side of the crown and a few darker dabs for individual leaves.
Finish the aspen and Japanese maple in the same way. Add fine branch lines and small dark marks, then let everything dry flat.
Tips and common mistakes
Let each wash dry before adding the next layer, or the colours will turn muddy.
Keep the paint light at first. You can always add a darker layer, but you cannot take one away.
Leave small white gaps in the crown to suggest light coming through the leaves.
Test colours on scrap paper before painting the final tree.
Questions
Do I need special watercolour paper for this?
Use watercolour paper rather than printer paper. It holds the water and stops the paper from buckling.
Can I paint all four trees on one sheet?
Yes. Sketch four light outlines first, or paint them in a row so each tree has space for its crown.
What if my colours look muddy?
Rinse the brush between colours and avoid mixing more than two or three pigments at once.
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.
