Watercoloring Realistic Leaves

 This week it's my turn to pick what we are learning along to watercolor paint at Splitcoaststampers and I have chosen this video by Crystal Beshara Artist Channel. I love that snapshot of the leaves and thought, I want to know what ever it is she is going to share. 

So this video starts with go outside and pick up some leaves to give it a whirl. The ones in my front yard when I started this are from a weeping birch. These are the one on the left is a little less dry than the one on the right here. (and you trace around the edges with a pencil) 

So what I found was my more dry leaf on the right, I knocked some of the crunchy edge off the outermost edge of my leaf trying to lightly trace around the shape. I just eyeballed where the main veins were.

And the tip I loved the absolute most was that just gently rub your brush bristles into the soap before you daub some masking fluid on them. ( brilliant) I have in the past been using different ( cheap brushes or a silcone wedge thing but, I had not been able to get thin lines with that so, using a striper brush and protecting it first worked really well for me.

Funny true story, we have seen so many video's over the last couple of years one of the people I have learned a ton from is MarenaART and I had decided I really really liked that I thought of it as a leaf palette that she makes ( she has some others but, the "leaf" was something I really wanted and after hemming and hawing about it for a while I ordered it and the butterfly from her towards the end of September thinking ( it comes from Croatia) that it just might arrive by my birthday. ( and it did took about hmm 3 1/2 weeks from when it shipped to arrive.) the part that makes this "funny" is when you look at it in the store she calls it a feather, not a leaf. :)

This one the adding brown to the edges of the leaf on the left was not going too well for me and I decided to stop what I was doing and go watch the video again before I dug a hole in the paper. 

So, at this point it's the next day and the leaves have dried more being up on the table so the shadows are changing shape a little because, of the curling as drying is happening.

at this point I decided to remove the masking fluid, so you can see the palest yellow space where the veins are. 

A few more layers of paint, and started the shadow on the leaf on the right.

I am not too impressed with the leaf on the left, but everything has a learning curve so I am glad I did this in my sketch book so I can see it again later. that is the most affirming thing to see how far I have come in the last while playing along with these challenges.

Closer look at leaf on the left.

Closer look at leaf on the right and ultimately what will go into the gallery.

We had a little road trip last weekend and I was laughing at my self looking at the ground, ( it was raining all weekend) so, there were quite a few leaves that had been knocked down and these caught my eye in a Cabela's parking lot in Tualatin, I have no clue what kind of a tree they came off of but, the first one on the black console of the truck they are wet leaves.

these are wet in this shot, so I put them in the pocket of the door of my truck and 

They had dried quite a bit on the drive home so I stuck a flat bottomed bowl over them and left it there about 18 hours before checking to see if they were flat and dry and then shooting a shot on the glass mat to see if I could see "colors" in the shadows ( which I do not) but, I thought these were such an interesting color combo. I hope you are all doing well. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.