getting advice.

[Rondo]

Maybe a strange question from me but.....how do i get leaves on trees,flowers in the fields WITHOUT stencils or other,just plain brushes? Are there brushes that are more suited for that kin of work?
If i look at the Artrage "Landscape" contest on Deviantart? then i'm really jealous (well not really,lol) about the quality of these (sometimes) masterpieces

[D Akey]

Well, there's a million ways to do leaves. So there's not an answer the way you asked. It's rather like asking how to paint water (well, maybe not quite so open ended, but still a little broad).

But if you are interested in doing trees, a way to do them without being a slave to rendering, whether you use stencils or not, the trick is the look at the overall shape of the trees. Each species looks different. And most change at least contextually with the seasons. And trees have a certain character depending on the needs of the painting.

If you are talking pines, they have a certain look and I think guys like Bob Ross painted them a lot because they are fairly easy. So check those tutorials out.

But if you look at architectural renderings, those artists put in trees that are decorative most often. And they have created something of a short hand way to indicate what kind of tree it is, that's fairly effective in the context of that style and they use them like props, so they have different qualities to enhance their building in a decorative landscape way. Those surprisingly have a value in learning from.

Also there are those that are done by old masters with their world of dense thickets and clusters of diverse species. What they often did is design a shape or several overlapping shapes that the whole business would fill, and then pop on mid-values and then lights, in many cases working dark to light. Many times they would be free handed in a generic way like someone might pop in clouds to their skies, so it looks like trees generally.

Some trees are dense and some are airy. And many times they can be designed or modified to work in a composition.

So think in terms of composition, and use some formulas when they're in the distance. You're not doing a portrait necessarily. And you could even go so far as to stylize the heck out of them so it may even barely resemble a tree, but still they would make a great painting. And that's what you're doing is making paintings, first and foremost.

What you want to do is look at Google Images and see what kinds of trees strike your fancy, and look at how they were painted. It could be like taking a walk in "The Forest" the year round.

Have fun. Air it out. And start looking and using that as a springboard for your creativity. That's what I did when I was learning or when I saw something that really caught my eye, or when I did it badly and wanted to expand my visual vocabulary. Your journey will help you because it's yours. And I would bet there are tons of YouTube tutorials on how to do them. It's very common to paint one form or another because they're all around us.

Go man go!

BTW, I enjoyed your entries into the competition. You showed many of them here as well so that's where I first saw them.

[justjean]

I was looking at the entry " country road" or something like that and they look like they may have been done with dabbing the oil brush

[Rondo]

thank you for the explanation dear D Akey and glad to hear you enjoyed my entrees in the deviantart competition even my trees did not make it.
Talking of which,i never was able to find back some of the brushes i had before my big crash a few month ago,with these brushes i was able to " created" more easily the leaves in such a way the really looked like leaves and the tree as a tree,lol.
The videos of Bob Ross i seen a lot of them but when he makes his pine trees?(because its real painting) he could move his brush in such way / \ this is +-,we can not do this in Artrage or i must miss something here,lol
When i prefered to deviantart?i was referring to the work of Henri Stall(he is a member here)and i really like his entry in the landscape competition, hens my question about making trees like he does or +- that is.
I really hope i make sense here,lol

[Khos]

Maybe a strange question from me but.....how do i get leaves on trees,flowers in the fields WITHOUT stencils or other,just plain brushes? Are there brushes that are more suited for that kin of work?
If i look at the Artrage "Landscape" contest on Deviantart? then i'm really jealous (well not really,lol) about the quality of these (sometimes) masterpieces

This might not be totally related but what about using a 3d game engine like Unity to make aleaf, then rendering that to an image which you can use in your drawing.. seems like a long way but possible.. or the other way is to just draw it free hand .. I would just do the latter?

[MJSparks]

I would figure that it depends on the distance of your trees. Some of the brushes with their size and paint volume changed can make lovely distant trees. Of course the closer you get the more detail you have to add.

Been a while since I played on the computer with digital art. Been doing a bit more off the computer stuff, when I'm not chasing my new kittens around.They've been with me a little over two weeks. I'm scratched up to pieces... but having loads of fun and they're already twice as big as this photo. I can't catch them together still long enough for a good shot now. Most of the time they're wrestling each other.



But this is something I did a few years ago, it's not the best... but it illustrates what I meant to suggest. Everything in here was done with various brush sizes and paint volume settings that come with the default toolset.

[Rondo]

Thats what i'm talking about)well done for the leaves and the bushes.

[Gms9810]

Trees, and the painting thereof is peeve of mine. I see SO many really good artists painting just generic trees and that annoys me. Every species of tree has it's own shape, it's own colors, and it's own environment. Being a lifelong country boy coming from a very long line of country folks, I was taught to notice those differences all of my life. One would not, for example, paint grove of palm trees in Canada but a grove of Birches would be perfect. One also wouldn't expect to see a tall thin tree on a mountain that was meant to be a dogwood since dogwoods are short, delicate, and tend to grow in lower locations. Bob Ross used to paint tree trunks black with a sliver of white regardless of what kind of tree it was and pound a 2 inch brush into the canvas to make foliage, didn't matter what kind it was, same brush same colors, same random limbs, just shapes that looked like trees. I know, that's part of impressionism and for that style of painting it's ok but it makes me want to scream. Like I said, it's a peeve of mine. A really good artist, and Bob talked about this on several occasions, would just sit outside and study the shapes, colors, and forms of the different kinds of trees... but then he didn't practice what he preached. I know this isn't really related to your question but I had this uncontrollable urge to say it. I feel better now.
Now, in answer to your question, in AR for me, sponge brushes work best for generic leaves although I've made a few brushes that help me too.
Sorry for the rant.

[Rondo]

don't have to apologize for your "rant",that whats makes this forum so great9 out of 10? your answers are read and a big change they gone be come back with a suitable answershould it possible to give me a link to your brushes? thank in advance

[MJSparks]

Hopefully I didn't set off your rant with my image.

I totally get what you're tossing down about tree type variations and the areas that they are commonly found. Using certain brushes won't always pull off the right type of leaf look that you're going for, that much is very true. If I were attempting more realism. I would certainly study the trees of the area that I'm trying to relay because the time of year and weather would change the look of the leaf from a distance. Not to mention as you get closer and closer your eyes would yield more and more details of leaf. Study is always an important thing to do and of course incorporate what you learned into your image.

This particular illustration of mine is of an area in an imaginary land (in my head).... where I'm attempting to write a book about that world and a few characters in it. In my imaginary world, the forest in particular is not mixed with several types of tree... thus the impressionistic semi-repetitive brush-work. The original purpose was to give myself a general idea of how the characters would interact in this particular part of that world. (i.e. enter stage left... etc. ) So I drew this with that story in mind, trying to visualize how the scene would play out, not necessarily working on details of the landscape as much envisioning what I wanted to write. Then, to help explain what I was speaking about... I repurposed it to show an example of a way of obtaining a tree/brush form that didn't use stencils.

I personally didn't keep any special settings, I just played with them until I found something suitable.