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Start Art 5 29 www.painters-online.co.uk RT START Paint summer trees in watercolour Having practised your watercolour techniques, follow Tim Fisher’s simple guide to painting trees U sing the correct tools, my method of painting trees in watercolour is quite easy. The difficulty comes with our pre-knowledge of what a tree should look like. So by all means practise the techniques shown here, but in addition, sketch real trees from life or photographs to understand their structure fully. Don’t be overwhelmed by the mass of leaves or branches in real life. It’s only the basic shape and structure that you’re after; try looking at the tree with half-closed eyes as this will simplify the scene. Notice from my sketch, right, the non- uniform shape of the foliage and that hardly any of the trunk is visible. When we draw trees from our imagination, they often appear too lollypop shaped, which is not what we want. The basic tree painting technique is to use a combination of side and tip strokes with a partly loaded brush. The side strokes require the brush to be held in a certain manner; I liken it to holding the bow of a violin. This grip allows the side of the brush to move in parallel to the surface, depositing paint mainly on the raised bumps of the paper. See below This is a pencil sketch of a summer tree that I made near my studio Hold the tip of your brush a bit like you would a violin bow to make your side strokes You will need… Watercolour paper 300gsm/140lb NOT A size 16 round synthetic brush with a good tip. I have my own make, but the Prolene series 101 by Pro Arte makes a good alternative Three tubes of watercolour: French ultramarine blue, quinacridone red and Winsor yellow A palette with large divided mixing areas A large container of water Kitchen towel