Although I am going to divide this lesson into two, it is merely for convenience. In truth, they are an integrated unit supporting the flower structure.  As you will see, it is very important to observe how and where the leaves attach themselves to the stems. Get into this habit from the start and your flower paintings will look professional and convincing.

By the way, those of you with children or grandchildren to entertain might like to introduce them to collecting, identifying and recognising and DRAWING leaves. It's actually fun:-)

BBC Gardening Activity with Children:

Collecting Leaves.

 Painting Leaves

The actual shape of a leaf, the arrangement of its veins and the type of leaf edge are important aspects of a flower design. Don't make them up!

Of course, unless we are attempting a botanical leaf study, the leaves we observe and paint will have curves, curls, underneaths and sides. Don't worry, I will go into more depth about observing these difficult angles in a later lesson. For now, let's not get too complex but focus on producing a convincing leaf shape with veins and reflected light.

Remember in demo 3 when we looked at colour temperature? In just the same way that cool and warm colours help to describe the shape of a petal, they also help us to show the turn of a leaf and the texture of its surface. Light can reflect from the sky and also from the flower petals.

Although I am going to divide this lesson into two, it is merely for convenience. In truth, they are an integrated unit supporting the flower structure.  As you will see, it is very important to observe how and where the leaves attach themselves to the stems. Get into this habit from the start and your flower paintings will look professional and convincing.

By the way, those of you with children or grandchildren to entertain might like to introduce them to collecting, identifying and recognising and DRAWING leaves. It's actually fun:-)

BBC Gardening Activity with Children:

Collecting Leaves.

 Painting Leaves

The actual shape of a leaf, the arrangement of its veins and the type of leaf edge are important aspects of a flower design. Don't make them up!

Of course, unless we are attempting a botanical leaf study, the leaves we observe and paint will have curves, curls, underneaths and sides. Don't worry, I will go into more depth about observing these difficult angles in a later lesson. For now, let's not get too complex but focus on producing a convincing leaf shape with veins and reflected light.

Remember in demo 3 when we looked at colour temperature? In just the same way that cool and warm colours help to describe the shape of a petal, they also help us to show the turn of a leaf and the texture of its surface. Light can reflect from the sky and also from the flower petals.

From observation, draw a faint outline to guide your painting.

Try not to include every vein you see. If you wish to go that detailed, it is far better to add these with colour.

If you are observing from life or a photo, it will be evident which direction the light source is coming from. I always make a small directional arrow on all my paintings to remind me.

Next I start by laying in a base colour underwash. With greens, I like to use a warm yellow as it helps to make the sunny areas glow. This stage doesn't need to be carefully done as it will soon be covered by subsequent layers of colour.

I'm using pastel pencils but you could easily use oil pastels, coloured pencils or continue to work in paint.

First, using a mixture of burnt umber and alizarin crimson pencils, I sketch in the darker side of the stem, letting the colour move down into the central vein.

Next, I start to build up the shadow areas. I have added a dark green to the lowest part of the leaf surface along the veins and let this graduate into the leaf area around the veins on the sides away from the light. This immediately gives you the impression of higher and lower areas on the leaf surface.

I also start to add shadow to the edge curling away from the light. This helps to describe the curve of the leaf. I then add some shadow areas to the side furthest away from the light source.

I continue to build up the leaf surface in a very loose manner, paying attention to shadow and light areas. Of course, I could go on to add more detail and, if this was a plant study instead of to compliment a flower painting, I probably would do so with a few key leaves.

I hope you have fun experimenting. Leaves are actually quite fun to paint if you approach them in stages. I especially like painting the beautiful colours of autumn leaves with a few holes and bare veins! In a later lesson, I'll be doing a demo of some of these in the context of fading autumn blooms:-)

Coming in a later lesson: Complex leaf shapes: curves and curls, side and underneath views.