Fall Tree Watercolor Tutorial (Easy Hand Painted Cards)
Today Kim came into the office and said she wanted to paint a fall picture.
Has she ever painted before?
Has she studied watercolor painting or watched over my shoulder while I painted?
Did she think she’d be able to do it?
Now if you know Kim, this will surprise you. She must have had angels whispering in her ear all night that she could do whatever she wanted. She didn’t say what gave her confidence, but it made me happy.
So we collected our supplies, sat down and dipped our brushes into paint, and painted pictures.
And they are absolutely gorgeous.
Also, it’s a way to feel really cool while it’s still 100* in the shade. You see the fall colors and the pumpkin and a seasonal transformation happens in your mind.
So don’t be scared to try this project. You can’t mess it up. And it will make you feel cool in more ways than one!
Fall Tree Watercolor Tutorial
- Yellow and green watercolor pencils
- Round paint brushes. I say size 1 and size 6 round, but you can go smaller if you’re more comfortable with that.
- Watercolor paper 140# Strathmore or Canson cut to 5″ x 7″ which is A7 card size.
- Watercolor paint pots in Shimmer Green, Yellow, Red, Brown. We mixed red and yellow to get orange.
- Water jar, paper towel, paint tray (if you don’t use your table for your paint mixing palette. :/ )
Directions:
- DRAW.
Using the picture on the left as a guide, draw a few outlines with the yellow and green watercolor pencil. Using watercolor pencil saves the worry of lead pencil marks showing through your finished painting. - PAINT THE TREE.
Load smaller brush with water and brown paint, then outline the tree in several places. When you line the branches skip places for the leaves. Mix water, brown, red and yellow paint to create a light ocher, then fill in the lower tree trunk. But just blot some trunk places on the upper tree. - PAINT THE LEAVES.
Use the larger brush. You can do leaves in two ways. First way, lay down some patches of water and drop orange and yellow paint into it from your brush tip. This is a lot of fun because you get to watch the colors spread and blend in an awesome way. The second way is load your brush with plenty of water, some color, and blot it onto the paper. There’s more control this way, but it’s not utilizing the fun part of watercolor. I did some of both. Then when the paint was almost dry I went back and added more color details. - THE GROUND.
Add watery shimmer green to the ground, but don’t completely fill the area. Let the white of the paper show through. Add some colored leaves if you wish. - PUMPKIN.
With the liner brush, mix red and yellow to get orange, and outline the pumpkin. Fill in with orange, trying to leave curves that are very light. Take some color off with a dry brush if you get too much paint on. Let this dry slightly, then darken the shadow side and rib insides with brown. Add a brown stem. Add green leaves and tendrils.
- Flourish your signature and the date somewhere, and you’re done.
- You can add this piece to the front of a card, or frame it for fall decor.
Simple Fall Tree Craft
To start our autumn tree we used markers to draw the tree trunk. I chose markers instead of paint because I wanted the trunk to stand out against the brown paint we were planning to use later on the leaves.
To make our colorful leaves we used a small piece of sponge, which we held with a clothes pin. Just dab in the color paint you want, and then dot on your leaves!
The trees got prettier and prettier with each layer of leaves we added!
We used water colors, which allowed the colors to blend nicely. A different style of paint would probably allow each leaf to stand out a bit more.
Filed Under: Kids Crafts Tagged With: autumn, fall, painting
Comments
- Michelle says October 5, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Very cute! It looks like a fun project with the kids! I’ll share the sponge idea with my daughter for when she babysits.
- OneMommy says October 7, 2013 at 8:49 am
Babysitters that do crafts are the best sitters!
I haven’t done any this year, but last year I followed a Martha Stewart pattern and made large fall leaves from felt – 2 felts per pattern, glued together – to just put on the table.
- OneMommy says October 8, 2013 at 2:28 pm
She has some beautiful decoration ideas, but I don’t think I am quite crafty enough for them! I’m kind of a kid crafter….
What a fun idea. We are going to have to give that a try!
This looks fun! We love any craft that relates to fall
Oh, what a pretty craft! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!
My son hates to get messy doing art (big sister has no problem with it though!) So we try to stay away from anything involving thumbs or hands in paint. It was actually my daughter who suggested sponges!
Very pretty results! I featured you this week on Mom’s Library!
- OneMommy says October 16, 2013 at 1:12 pm
