Easy watercolor holly leaves (Christmas painting tutorial)
Learn how to create easy watercolor holly leaves in this Christmas painting tutorial. In this online art class, follow along step-by-step to paint and draw this beautiful winter plant, for beginners and more experienced artists.
Equipment
- Pencil
- Watercolor paper - I am using 140 lb. Strathmore Vision cold press watercolor paper cut down into a 6 x 9-inch piece.
- Watercolor paint - tube watercolor paint on a pallet or a box kit of watercolor paints such as Crayola or Prang. Avoid cheap or off brand watercolor boxes because the colors will not be very vibrant. I am using Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Yellow, Viridian Green, Prussian Blue, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ocher, and Burnt Umber. But don’t worry if you don’t have these, you can use whatever you have on hand.
- Watercolor brush - a soft round watercolor brush will work well. I am using a round number 6 and number 4.
- Water - A cup should do but if you will be doing a lot of painting and don’t want to change the water as often, use a small bucket.
- Paper towel or clean rag - for wiping the brush
Instructions
- Sketch, using very light lines that will not show up under the watercolor paint.
- Sketch in the stem of the holly sprig. Draw in the center guideline of the leaf. Then sketch in several rounded scallops connected by pointy spines on each side of the leaf.
- Surprisingly, holly leaves can vary in the number of lobes and spines that they have. It doesn’t matter how many scallops you add to each leaf. I recommend adding between 3 and 5 points.
- Draw in the rest of the leaves. Add a few berries clusters around the middle and a few more peaking out from behind a leaf.
- Erase any overlapping lines and the center guidelines of each leaf.
- Work on one leaf at a time. Paint clean water into the leaf area. Just enough to dampen the paper.
- Paint a little bit of Cerulean Blue (or light blue) in several random places on the leaf. Then rinse out the brush.
- Add a stroke of yellow (cadmium yellow or other yellow hue) down the middle for the center vein. This line can be broken or irregular. Add one or two other yellow highlights to the leaf.)
- Mix yellow (cadmium yellow), green (viridian green), and just a tiny bit of red (cadmium red light) together to make a light, earthy green. Paint it in some areas of the leaf.
- Leave a few spots white, or paper color, for highlights. Also, leave some room for the dark green paint.
- Mix green (viridian green) and a tiny bit of red (cadmium red light) to make a darker green. Paint this in several areas of the leaf, especially around the edges and next to the center vein.
- Dip the paintbrush into dark blue (Prussian Blue) and add a few low-light areas near the center of the leaf and on the spines. Using clean water, blend the dark blue color out just a little bit.
- Paint in the stem using a tan color (yellow ocher) for the area where light is hitting and dark brown (burnt umber) for the shaded side.
- Using a smaller brush, add color to the berries by painting an “O” shape in the middle of each berry in yellow paint.
- Paint a circle outside of the yellow. Then dab some crimson paint on the bottom of each berry.
Notes
Make your pencil lines very light so they don’t show up underneath the paint.
Don’t forget to leave several white spots on each leaf for highlights.
Paint slowly but keep the individual strokes loose.
But don’t worry if you don’t have the same paint colors that I am, you can use whatever you have on hand.
Keep practicing! This is a great project for beginning painters and more experienced artists.