Decorative Painting: Leaves Worksheet

The worksheets were competed with the oil painter in mind. The instruction can easily be converted to acrylics by changing your brush and picking appropriate acrylic colors.

Brush used: Badger Flat 1/2", sable

Load the 1/2" Sable brush with a dark color of your choice on both sides of the brush to get a chisel edge.

• Use the chisel edge and put in the veins for each leaf (step 1). Make sure you curve the vein, the length will determine how large the leaf will be.
• Outline the shape of the leaf as shown on the worksheet with the chisel edge of your brush (Step 2).
• Using the flat of the brush, fill in the center of the leaf by starting at the back of the leaf and pull toward the tip of the leaf (Step 3).
• As you pull toward the tip, you will need to turn the brush from being on the flat side to being on the chisel point when you get to the end of the leaf. This is like a short blade leaf.
• Now you need to put the sides on the leaf. Load the brush with a ;medium color of your choice. Start at the tip of the leaf, use the flat side of the brush and tip the edges of the leaf towards the center of the vein (Step 4). The brush is at an angle, see the worksheet for placement. Do one side, then the other
• Now you can highlight the edges of the leaf with a a light color of your choice; leaf or flower color are nice choices (Step 5).
• Load the brush on ONE SIDE ONLY and place the loaded side to the outside of the leaf's edge. Tip the edges here and there.
• Just remember NOT to pull all the way to the center vein. Just TIP!

For a short cut method, follow steps 3 through 5 on the Leaf worksheet. Us the same method and do smaller leaves as shown.. One Stroke leaves are done using Step 3 of the Basic Leaf or Step 1 of the Short Cut method. (See Blade Leaves)