I have been painting leaves and let me tell you that painting leaves is a mood changer and makes a difference in your flower paintings.

Painting leaves is a mood changer

These past few days I have been finding my way. Then I sat down to paint leaves and suddenly I was me in all the right ways. I was like leaves! Why haven’t I been painting more of you? Painting leaves is simple. Painting leaves is like painting swatches of green mixed with blue, and yellow to form a leaf shape.

Painting leaves can help you practice mixing greens

I know of an artist who doesn’t buy green paint because green is the easiest to mix. It is! Painting leaves is a great way to mix greens. These are my colors for mixing green: turquoise, primary yellow, and quinacridone magenta. Oh, and I also use titanium white. I’ll begin with a layer of turquoise. Then dip my brush in yellow and blend the two colors for texture. Each of your leaves will come out differently. This leads to beautiful leaves and beautiful paintings. Click here for more color-mixing tips.

Painting leaves can make a difference in your art

Not sure how it happened but there I was needing a little mental health. Suddenly, I am loosely holding the brush and painting these random leaf shapes! When you hold the brush in the middle, it allows for loose brushstrokes. Loose brushstrokes make your leaves random and filled with lovely textures. Loose brushstrokes take you away to where you need to be.

My leaves were painted with a flat brush. There is something about using a flat brush that makes it easier to paint flowers and leaves. Then I used my finger to blend colors and created a watercolor texture with leftover turquoise acrylic paint. From now on when I don’t feel confident enough to paint beautiful flowers, I’ll paint leaves. Painting leaves always leads to beautiful flowers.

How do you paint leaves? If you paint along with me, please leave a comment below. I’d love to check out your work. The other task I have is digitizing my art. I digitize most of my work in RGB form. I do this to save one file for my archive, POD, and client work. I recently learned that CMYK is the best option. I feel like CMYK may be the best for me given my color palette. Please help me.

With Love, Mireya