Easy Watercolor Painting for Beginners | Pine Cone

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Today I am excited to share with you my process for painting an easy watercolor winter pine cone. Let's jump in and get started!

Full video tutorial at the end of this post!

Supplies Needed:

Watercolor Paper

Watercolor Paint

Round Brush

Flat Brush

Washi Tape

Pencil

Two Cups of Water

Paper Towel

Paint Colors Used:

Ultramarine Blue + Payne's Gray = Dark Blue

Burnt Umber

Sage Green

Payne's Gray + Sage Green

All of these colors can be found in this perfect beginner set of watercolor paints. This is the exact set I am using in the video above to create this painting. I highly recommend this product to you if you are looking for a beginner set of paints.

Step 1:

To start all we need to do is draw two curved lines starting at the top right corner of the page.

Draw the first line curved down to the center of the page. The second line should be drawn downward close to the right side of the page.

Use the picture below as a guide.

Step 2:

Now that we have our lines in place we can add our flat wash to the background.

Using your flat brush begin painting the top left side of the page with the dark blue paint mixture. As you paint toward the middle of the page, clean your brush off and blend the dark paint over. This will help the right side look darker than the right side.

Let this layer completely dry before moving on.

Step 3:

Now we are going to paint the pine needles on the edges of our tree branches.

Using the Sage Green paint mixture begin painting in quick line motions to the end of the first line that we drew for our branches. The pine needles should start out short and become longer as you paint toward the top. Only paint in pine needles about a third of the way up the branch.

After the first layer of pine needles is complete add two darker layers of pine needles on top of the first layer (Just add Payne's Gray to your paint mixture to darken the green paint). This will give the pine needles depth rather than seeming flat.

Repeat this same process with the right branch line, but instead of stopping a third of the way up you can allow these pine needles to eventually come off the page.

Step 4:

To finish off this painting we are going to add in our tree branch, pine cone, and some white splatter for snow.

Tree Branch

Mix together a dark paint mixture of burnt umber, and use the tip of your round brush paint in a thin line along the pencil lines we drew earlier.

Pine Cone

Next, use that same burnt umber mixture to start tapping in the pine cone.

Begin by using the top part of your brush to tap in paint connected to the tree branch. Then creating the shape of a pine cone by dropping in the paint with the tip of your brush, leaving white space in between each paint drop.

(the pine cone should start out wider on the bottom as you work down it will come to a point.)

Once your pine cone shape is the way you like it, go back and drop in a darker layer of burnt umber to the top part of each paint drop to give a natural shadowing effect.

Snow

Lastly, to add our snow, dip your round brush in a lot of water and a lot of white paint and splatter the paint all over the painting. Don't worry about where the white paint will land, we want the snow to appear like it's falling all around.

Once this section dries you are done!

Congrats! You're Done!

I hope you enjoyed painting this easy beginner watercolor tutorial with me today! If you did please consider sharing it on social media and Pinterest!

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Full Video Tutorial

https://youtu.be/Nt1gLWhKIRE