Leaves often take supporting roles in art. They give colour and structure to landscapes and floral works, but are often not depicted in detail or as the focal point of an artwork. There are good reasons for this and the decisions you make as an artist as to how leaves are represented can make or break a painting. I'm still learning how best to go about painting leaves and thought I'd do some research on how other artists tackle our vital, green friends. Read on to find out what I discovered.
I was recently speaking to someone about how I'd gone about painting the leaves in 'Verdant Sunlight', my painting of a scene at Ballaglass Glen. I was explaining how I'd lacked confidence in my painting and how difficult it was to stop myself overworking the leaves and trying to give them more detail. I have a background of working in graphite, so detail is my natural tendency. That conversation got me thinking about how other artists approach this subject and, as I love an excuse to look at art, I thought I'd explore this further.
I'm a great fan of Hashim Akib, an artist who uses acrylic paint in a bold and vibrant style and uses large brushes to achieve a loose and energetic feel to his work.
Akib achieves amazing results with broad, quick strokes. Lots of his work, like 'Golden Light', (from the book Vibrant Acrylics) manages to fool the brain into thinking it's looking at a much more detailed painting. His clever use of complementary colours gives vibrancy to his paintings and he often avoids a contrived feel by painting the negative space between branches in short strokes, rather than painting the branches themselves on top of the background. Appreciating the work of artists like Hashim Akib helped me to see that it was possible to achieve the effect I wanted for leaves, with only a few strokes of the brush.
Another artist I admire greatly is David Bellamy. Not the botanist and TV presenter, or the Manx Wildlife Trust's Head of Conservation and Land, but the highly-talented watercolour artist who's given us books such as 'Arabian Light' and 'Seas and Shorelines in Watercolour'. In another of his books 'Skies, Light and Atmosphere in Watercolour', he describes painting the leaves on the trees in the above painting, 'Waterfall'. He uses a sequence of colours (in this case cadmium orange, cadmium yellow pale and finally burnt umber) and allows the colours to run into one another in places. This is the beauty of watercolour, as you lose a little control of the paint as it mingles and magical effects can occur. I think it'll be fun to try out this technique with the colours suggested and then with different combinations to see what works, what doesn't and the different types of atmosphere that can be created.
After searching out my David Bellamy books, I found my copy of 'The Art of Colour' by Kelly Grovier. On leafing through (pun intended) I was struck by the movement given to the foliage of the trees and shrubs by Vincent van Gogh in his painting 'Wheat Field with Cypresses'.
This contrasts with the very rigid forms he gave to the leaves in 'Wild Roses', although he painted the latter piece in the grounds of a psychiatric clinic soon after he'd checked himself in to try to find some mental peace. Perhaps the representation of leaves as clearly defined, rigid structures was an attempt at ordering his own thoughts.
'Wild Roses' is on display in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and I can highly recommend a visit if you ever get a chance to go. I never really appreciated Van Gogh's work until I saw it in real life. Online images and pictures in books struggle to convey the true colours and the gorgeous textures he created with his brushstrokes.
Another artist that I noticed in 'The Art of Colour' was Claude Monet. Meristem Horticulture has a beautiful blog post about Claude Monet's garden. Monet designed much of it and considered it to be his greatest form of art, so it's no wonder that he was so successful at painting flowers and foliage. He designed his water garden so that the flowers, plants and sky would be reflected in the pond and add another dimension to his work. This can be seen in his series of paintings depicting waterlilies, including the painting below. Monet was a key figure in the impressionist movement and as such, his works convey overall visual effects rather than details. The visible and loose brushstrokes on the waterlilies give the leaves of these plants definition and help them stand out from the background of the pond surface without describing their exact form. The effect is to capture the light and atmosphere of the scene and to give us the feeling of the place.
Impressionists were able to explore colour and form more freely than if they'd used the more constrained methods of traditional, academic painting. In his series of paintings featuring irises, Monet used greens, blues, purples and white to capture the light and texture of the flowers and leaves. Again, the focus was on capturing the feel of that moment, rather than depicting precise detail.
Closer to home, I took a look in the archives of the iMuseum and came upon this glorious painting of a cherry tree by William Hoggatt. Hoggatt (1879 - 1961) described himself as 'almost-Manx' as he was born in Lancaster but lived and worked on the Island as an artist for 55 years. He loved the Manx landscape and was renowned internationally for his ability to capture its beauty in the artworks he produced. In the painting below, in gouache and pastel, he's captured the light and beauty of the cherry tree in a loose and impressionistic way. The use of blue in the background really resonates with the yellows in the tree and the painting begins to sing. If each leaf had been formed with more detail, the effect would likely have been lost. The colours and loose strokes of this painting make it for me.
During my research for this blog post, I found a few websites that may be of interest to anyone wishing to have a go at painting leaves and foliage themselves.
The Botanical Art and Artists website has a huge range of resources and inspiration, including the page 'How to draw and paint leaves and trees for botanical artists and illustrators'. This contains a wealth of information on leaf structure, colour mixing, book recommendations, as well as painting and drawing advice.
'The Mind of Watercolour' YouTube channel has useful videos on negative painting and simplification when painting leaves.
Dianne Mize on the 'In the Studio Art Instruction' YouTube channel has produced a video on foliage strokes, in which she promotes embracing your own style and playing with your brushes so you get to know what stokes they make.
For a different take on painting leaves, Michael James Smith has produced a video to show his very detailed representation of trees.
If you'd like to relax, and perhaps try some new ways to create art involving leaves, then take a look at the videos, How to Draw Leaves and Botanicals and the beautiful Depth Green Leaves painting process.
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