I recently rediscovered this painting in a portfolio of old artwork from high school. I remember really liking the process - that was the first year I was really getting into watercolor, so I was excited to experiment with it. Given the current season, I thought I'd feature some detail images of this fun painting today -
And, if I get around to it, I hope to make some smaller (5"x7") paintings using the same technique sometime in the next month or two before winter settles in and I don't have the necessary leaves at my disposal outside.
This painting is available for purchase on Etsy!
To create this painting, I followed several steps. It was AP Art my senior year of high school, there were only about 10 of us in the class, and we were often just kind of left to do our own thing, in whatever media we wanted to use, but occasionally our teacher would give us a class-wide assignment when we thought we needed to have our horizons widened, or help getting out of a rut. This was one such assignment.
Step one was to collect leaves. Dry leaves, fresh leaves plucked from a tree, whatever we could find. All different sizes and from a variety of trees. We didn't have any deciduous trees in our yard, so I had to walk to the subdivision park with a Ziploc to gather my collection. Here in Rochester Hills, though, I have a plethora of leaves to choose from, right in my own backyard.
Step two was to paint a few leaves with masking fluid, and apply the fluid to the watercolor paper by "stamping" the leaves.
This is what masking fluid looks like
And here is a great resource for how to use it in watercolor painting
This preserved some white areas of the paper while I stamped other leaves on top of it, to give it a mutli-layered texture.
Step three was to use watercolor pigment on other leaves (NOT using the same leaves I used with masking fluid, as those were, of course, now trash) and layer on the color. I used a cool color palette of yellow, blue, green, and brown. Blue can't be found in nature, but I wasn't really going for realistic.
If I'm remembering correctly (and it was a decade ago that I created this painting, so it's possible I'm not), I used a few different methods, including:
1) Making a "puddle" of very watery pigment on my palette, dipping the leaf in, and transferring the leaf onto the paper. If I held the leaf-stamp down for a short amount of time, the result was a fuzzy vaguely-leaf shaped blob of color. If I held it down for longer, it would produce a crisper image.
2) Stamping the leaf "wet-on-wet" (fresh paint onto an area that was already painted, or an area of the paper I'd thoroughly watered with my brush) - which would also achieve those fuzzier shapes - and stamping the leaf "wet-on-dry" (fresh paint onto an area of dry paper) to get a clearer image.
3) Painting the leaf so that I could really get the leaf to soak up more pigment and produce a darker image, and then stamping it. I believe using this technique and holding the leaf-stamp for several minutes is what achieved the topmost layer, with its clearly visible leaf veins.
When I make my smaller versions in the coming months, I'll have to experiment again and see what methods work best to achieve the results I'm looking for, but the general guidelines above are a good place to start.
Once the layers were all dry, step four was to remove the masking fluid to exposed the preserved white paper underneath.
For the final step, I went through with a blue colored pencil and traced some of the edges of the leaf shapes (and drew my own "leaf veins" in some places) to add visual variety and define some of the shapes better.
My art teacher had a mat in this light olive green color that he cut for me to use. He thought it'd bring out the yellow-brown tones of the painting nicely.
Don't forget - this painting is available for purchase on Etsy!
And, if I get around to it, I hope to make some smaller (5"x7") paintings using the same technique sometime in the next month or two before winter settles in and I don't have the necessary leaves at my disposal outside.
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| "Stamped Leaves" by Andrea Arbit - 11"x15" Watercolor & Colored Pencil on Paper |
This painting is available for purchase on Etsy!
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| Includes 16"x20" green mat! |
To create this painting, I followed several steps. It was AP Art my senior year of high school, there were only about 10 of us in the class, and we were often just kind of left to do our own thing, in whatever media we wanted to use, but occasionally our teacher would give us a class-wide assignment when we thought we needed to have our horizons widened, or help getting out of a rut. This was one such assignment.
Step one was to collect leaves. Dry leaves, fresh leaves plucked from a tree, whatever we could find. All different sizes and from a variety of trees. We didn't have any deciduous trees in our yard, so I had to walk to the subdivision park with a Ziploc to gather my collection. Here in Rochester Hills, though, I have a plethora of leaves to choose from, right in my own backyard.
Step two was to paint a few leaves with masking fluid, and apply the fluid to the watercolor paper by "stamping" the leaves.
This is what masking fluid looks like
And here is a great resource for how to use it in watercolor painting
This preserved some white areas of the paper while I stamped other leaves on top of it, to give it a mutli-layered texture.
Step three was to use watercolor pigment on other leaves (NOT using the same leaves I used with masking fluid, as those were, of course, now trash) and layer on the color. I used a cool color palette of yellow, blue, green, and brown. Blue can't be found in nature, but I wasn't really going for realistic.
If I'm remembering correctly (and it was a decade ago that I created this painting, so it's possible I'm not), I used a few different methods, including:
1) Making a "puddle" of very watery pigment on my palette, dipping the leaf in, and transferring the leaf onto the paper. If I held the leaf-stamp down for a short amount of time, the result was a fuzzy vaguely-leaf shaped blob of color. If I held it down for longer, it would produce a crisper image.
2) Stamping the leaf "wet-on-wet" (fresh paint onto an area that was already painted, or an area of the paper I'd thoroughly watered with my brush) - which would also achieve those fuzzier shapes - and stamping the leaf "wet-on-dry" (fresh paint onto an area of dry paper) to get a clearer image.
3) Painting the leaf so that I could really get the leaf to soak up more pigment and produce a darker image, and then stamping it. I believe using this technique and holding the leaf-stamp for several minutes is what achieved the topmost layer, with its clearly visible leaf veins.
When I make my smaller versions in the coming months, I'll have to experiment again and see what methods work best to achieve the results I'm looking for, but the general guidelines above are a good place to start.
Once the layers were all dry, step four was to remove the masking fluid to exposed the preserved white paper underneath.
For the final step, I went through with a blue colored pencil and traced some of the edges of the leaf shapes (and drew my own "leaf veins" in some places) to add visual variety and define some of the shapes better.
My art teacher had a mat in this light olive green color that he cut for me to use. He thought it'd bring out the yellow-brown tones of the painting nicely.
Don't forget - this painting is available for purchase on Etsy!
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