Simply Lovely Watercolor Fern Paintings For Mastering Brush Control

Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the New Year for the trees starts tonight, and if you have 30 minutes or so you can still whip up some gorgeous watercolor leaf paintings and learn about practicing your brush strokes a win win crafting experience! While I have yet to actually put in the time I’d like, I’m in the process of honing/learning some illustration skills, starting with watercolor painting. It turns out that the first step is learning brush control, using a round brush, and leaves like the ones used in my fern illustrations are created with just one stroke. Pretty great I must admit, and so relaxing to paint. A friend was over the other day and she thought I had stamped all these little leaves! Of course there are so many designs one can make once you master the one stroke leaf, so give it a try and enjoy!

You’ll Need:

• watercolors (any paint and any paper can be used for this)
• watercolor paper
• round watercolor brushes, I believe I used a size 1 and a size 4, but certainly a larger brush can be used as well

How To:

1. First practice painting individual leaves as follows: fill brush with paint, holding brush at an angle touch point of brush to paper, press down on brush and make stroke of desired length, then slowly life to form a point.
2. To paint ferns as shown, first paint a centers stem, and then paint leaves along both sides, decreasing size of leaves as you move towards the top.
3. That is it, enjoy!

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