Olive Branch free watercolor painting tutorial post
Hello from France! While being on a vacation with family I still am constantly in search of something interesting to paint, to capture, and to give to my Art Community. This time arriving at Provence first that caught my attention were Olive Trees, Olea europaea. They are so ancient and the color of the leaves is beautiful, while backside of the leaves is in completely different color tone!
Took my camera and went on a hunt for a perfect reference photo. Let me tell you a little bit about taking reference photos – it is not an easy task. Light should be perfect – not too bright sunlight and not too cloudy. Angle towards the light source should be right – if you are right hand sided person light source should be coming from the left side and if you are left hand sided it is other way around. And keep this side on all your reference photos, in botanical painting every aspect is important even the light direction. Focus should be sharp – it is a blessing that nowadays phones are so advanced but still need to look carefully what you are doing with your camera. Subject – well, not every subject picked is perfect for painting. With Olive Branch I was taking pictures and picking the right branch for 2 days, one was too filled with leaves, one was too thin, one was with lots of damaged leaves, one was in a very strange curved angle, one was without sharpness...... Let me show you!
After picking the right one I decided that I want to share this first painting from France with my email Art Community in June Art Issue. All email subscribers once a month have an opportunity to try my free full length tutorial. And for June I picked this Olive branch:
With this reference photo everything is right – not in the bright sunlight, but also not too cloudy; angle towards the light source is correct; leaves are in good condition; visible are front sides of the leaves and also back sides of the leaves; different angles and curves of the leaves – perfect!
Next part is sketching, drawing and tracing. You can do as you like and don't feel guilty if you are tracing from a device or from a print out. Greatest masters of the past were also finding the easiest ways to trace a sketch or transfer composition to canvas or paper. BUT it doesn't mean that you should completely avoid drawing technique in general. Drawing is the basic, drawing is very important, learning to draw and shade will make your painting process much better!!! I always encourage my students to start from drawing and shading, most of them don't like the idea, but after giving a few tryouts – they really enjoy the process and see big differences in their painting quality! I have great tutorials on shading like this Rose Practice or this Hydrangea Practice
Painting process was a bliss and I really recommend everyone who like botanical watercolor painting to try this tutorial. If you want to get this exact Olive Branch tutorial take a look at this Instagram Reel where are instructions how to get this tutorial in real time and with explanations of the process.
Here is a finished result:
Pigments Used: Lemon Yellow, Transparent Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green, Ultramarine Blue, Perylene Green - remember to experiment with pigments that you have in your paintbox :) and by experimenting I mean really Get to Know Your Pigments
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All the best wishes