Simple Leaf Fall Wreath in Watercolor

As I ease back into work after almost six months, I felt a simple leaf fall wreath was in order! This wreath has all of the typical fall colors: red, yellow, orange. And I threw in a little bit of green, too. If you’re not feeling “too creative”, go back to the basics. Keep it simple with colors and shape, and soon you’ll be painting in no time.

If you’re interested in how to paint wreaths, take my Watercolor Wreaths class in The Watercolor Garden or on Skillshare!

Well, let’s dive into today’s video!

Header graphic for Simple Leaf Fall Wreath in Watercolor blog post

Supplies:

Paint: LUKAS Aquarell 1862 Watercolor
Brush(es): Creative Mark’s Watercolor Brushes, round size 6
Paper: Canson Watercolor Paper
Jars of water
Paper towel or cotton rag
Pencil and eraser
All of my favorite supplies here

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Step 1: Paint Prep

For this painting, I’m using four colors:

PR255, Cinnabar Red
PO71, Permanent Orange
PY35, Cadmium Yellow Light
PG17, Chromium Oxide Green

All of my watercolors are from the LUKAS 1862 Watercolor set that you can find at Jerry’s Artarama! You know I’ve tried lots of different brands, and this is by far the best quality for the best price.

Step 2: Paint Leaves

A set of five red leaves on a single stem. The start of a watercolor wreath painting by Audrey Ra Design. Her left hand can be seen holding the paper and the right hand holding a brush about to pick up a bright red color.

I should really come up with a class on how to just paint leaves. But my favorite way is to play around with varying the pressure you apply on your brush. See those wider parts of the leaf? That means more of your brush is touching the paper. The skinnier parts of the leaf is where you lift and lighten the pressure.

I started with the Cinnabar Red and worked my way around as I added some of the Permanent Orange and Cadmium Yellow Light.

Step 3: Fill in empty spaces

I like to establish my wreath shape and then go in and fill in empty spaces. For the smaller leaves, I mixed in Permanent Orange to the other colors.

I love the Polar Flo brush because it really keeps its shape well and makes painting tiny leaves a breeze.

Next, I used chromium oxide green to draw grass-like details.

Step 4: Final Details

For the final details, with the size 2 brush, continue to fill in empty spaces with smaller brushes. If you paint in a lighter value, it’ll seem like some of the leaves are poking out from behind the foreground leaves.

And that’s it!