How I Paint a Realistic Pine Tree (Simple Method)

Many artists struggle with painting trees in landscape paintings. In fact it's one of the more tricky things to paint. So in this video I'm going to show you how to paint a pine tree and show you a way of painting trees where you don't have to paint every single leaf or pine needle but instead treating them as masses and still be able to convey a convincing looking tree that looks detailed and realistic but without adding loads and loads of detail to it. So first of all I'm just sketching out my composition here using burnt sienna mixed with a little pale drying gel which is the medium I'm using. I'm using oil paints here and the brand of paint I'm using is Blue Ridge oils and if you want to get some I've put a link in the description box below. Now I painted this live in front of my students at Sam's Landscape Painting School as at the time of making this video we're doing a tree painting course so we're painting a variety of trees. If you're interested in joining Sam's Landscape Painting School then click the link below. Now this painting roughly measures 10 inches by 12 inches and I'm painting on loose fine weave linen. It's oil primed and I've taped it to a board which is ideal if you want to do lots of paintings and not have them take up too much space in your studio. Also they're very easy to ship if you sell them you can just roll them up and send them in a tube. Now as I say when you paint trees it's important to treat them as masses and when you start a landscape painting I think the easiest thing is to start with the darkest values first. Value is how light or dark your subject is and we're going to find our darkest darks and our lightest lights in the foreground and as landforms recede the darks aren't as dark and the lights aren't as light. So I'm looking for all the shadows in the scene there's actually not all that many of them because the light source the sun was shining behind me when I took these photos. I'll just quickly show you the photos here so this tree is just down the road from where I live and it's always caught my eye whenever I drive past it so I'm based in far north New Zealand but I just really like the way that the tree just sticks out there in the landscape and you can see the hills behind it. So I was painting the dark values that are in the tree foliage and for this I used a mix of ultramarine blue with a little yellow ochre so we get a nice dark tone but it's got a slight green cast to it and obviously the more yellow ochre we mix in the more green that we can make it. So I also use that same mix just to mark in where the main stem of this pine tree is and some of those lateral branches as well. Then I painted the background as well so the background which is further away is going to be lighter in value so I painted it as if it was in shadow which it mostly was and for this I use a mix of ultramarine blue with a little bit of burnt sienna to desaturate some titanium white and a little alizarin crimson. Now there's obviously a lot of green in this painting so I was using varieties of different greens. The greens in the pine tree are a lot darker and in fact trees are some of the darkest values to be found in the landscape and that's a super important rule to remember especially conifer trees like pines. So I used a really dark green mix for the foliage and I used a combination of yellow ochre, ultramarine blue, a little titanium white, a little bit of cadmium yellow medium and then also some phthalo green and a small amount of cadmium red so we've got a nice dark green for the tree there. Now for the grass, the grass is one of the more lighter values in the landscape and I used similar colors as I did for the pine tree but I added more cadmium yellow medium. I also added a bit of cobalt teal in there and a lot more titanium white. Now when it comes to mixing color I don't mix them together thoroughly. I really like the idea of broken color coming through so that's just where you can see some of the individual hues from the paint tubes just coming through in your mix and it just adds more artistry to your painting. Another thing you might notice here is I'm using quite big brushes for the size of the painting. See I'm not worried about detail at this stage so I'm using the biggest flat brushes that I can get away with so I've got some nice painterly brush marks, a nice painterly underpainting that I can work from once it's dry and then I can start adding detail. Now with the style of paintings that I create I do like a little bit of realism but I really like impressionism and loose brushwork as well so I'm trying to find that medium between the two so I like loose brushwork with a little bit of detail in it. One of the things you don't want to do, at least I don't recommend this, is to just start off detailed straight away and trying to paint every leaf or every pine needle. That's just a nightmare so it's better just to just start off loose and if you're someone that's been struggling with loosening up your brushwork then this is the way to go. Just start off with the biggest brushes that you can get away with they should make you feel uncomfortable even and just start your painting with big brushes then once it's dry then you can start adding in the details. So the other thing we need to think about as well are the tonal values, the lights and darks, also the color harmony so that's where the painting just looks harmonious and the colors look pleasing to the viewer and we can do this by using common colors throughout the painting so all those colors that are on my palette there, trying to see if we can use those throughout the painting. Now when I paint I think in terms of values that's the lights and darks that's really important because that's what's going to create the depth and distance and the feeling of three-dimensional forms in the landscape so we've really got to make sure that our values are working so I'm always thinking in terms of value. So long as you're getting your values correct it doesn't matter if you don't quite have the right color the values are still going to help you to create a sense of depth in the painting. Now at this point I was thinking about getting the blocking in stage complete and I finished it by painting the sky which was a mix of ultramarine blue, titanium white and a little cobalt teal and then I let the painting dry and it had a week to dry as we do these painting classes every week at Sam's Landscape Painting School. Now if you're struggling with your painting and you want to learn my framework for creating landscapes I've always found that it helps to have a set process to work towards and just follow that framework and it helps you to create successful paintings and I show you all of this in my free landscape painting blueprint. There's also a painting demonstration at the end of it so if you'd like to get that just click the link below and I'll send it over to you. Enjoy! So at this point of the painting we were on our second painting session so the painting was completely dry we've got that nice loose brushwork underneath and this is where I then began the modeling stage so this is where we're starting to add detail and we're starting to add lighter layers of paint so I kept the whole painting tonally darker in the blocking in stage so this allows plenty of room to add lighter layers of paint and we're going to save our lightest lights until the end. So I started working on the foliage in the pine tree and I was using similar greens to what I was using in the blocking stage so mainly a mix of yellow ochre, some cadmium yellow medium, some ultramarine blue, a little bit of phthalo green, a bit of titanium white, a little bit of cadmium red light and I was adding lighter layers on top of the existing darker layers of paint so we're slowly building up those lighter layers of paint. I was also starting to use small brushes, smaller flat brushes, even synthetic flat brushes as well which is going to get some sharper edges and finer marks. I also worked on painting the tree to the left of the pine tree and was just adding details there also adding a little bit more detail to the grass in the foreground adding lighter layers of paint so I'm slowly building up those lighter layers and again saving the lightest lights until last. Now another tip for painting trees in order to convey the shape of the trees canopy and also convey lots of leaves is to feather and soften the edges of the tree canopy so this helps to convey an abundance of leaves. So that's what I did with this smaller tree to the left. I'm not sure what this tree is I think it's an Australian species certainly the tree behind it is a gum tree. Once I'd added the lighter layers to the canopy here I then further sculpted the tree by mixing in some shadows so adding some of those shadows which is helping to add more shape and three-dimensional form. So the cool thing about shadows in general and landscape paintings is we can use this to sculpt elements in the scene. I then finished off this particular painting session by adding some lighter layers to the grass and just building up a bit of interest and detail in there. When I paint grass I don't like to paint every single blade of grass just more the suggestion of thick grass which you can easily do with a flat brush and some gestural brush marks. Now at this point in the painting it was dry it was a week later as I said I was painting this with my students and this was the last painting session on this so this is where I was thinking about adding those last highlights the last details and tidying up the whole painting. So I was finishing off with the clouds in the sky here there's some of those high-level cirrus clouds and for this I just used a mix of titanium white with a really small amount of burnt sienna and yellow ochre and then for the sky mix it was titanium white with some ultramarine blue and some cobalt teal. Now this is another way that we can paint convincing looking trees is once you've worked on the main body of the tree itself you can actually use the negative spaces around it to further shape the tree so in this case I was adding just a little bit of detail to the hills in the background here but also using it to add more shape and definition to the pine tree. Also adding in some of those sky holes as well so the holes that you can see through the tree again it helps to further add more shape and definition to the tree itself. Now then if you remember I said I saved my lightest values until last so in the case of the pine tree I'm adding some lighter layers of green to the needles there and I was using a really small eighth of an inch bristle dagger brush which is perfect for painting these clumps of needles. To mix those greens I use similar colors to the greens in the previous session so mainly a mix of yellow ochre with some cadmium yellow medium ultramarine blue and titanium white as the base of my greens then a little bit of phthalo green and some cadmium red light. So once the highlights on those pine needles were worked in I then added the suggestion of fine twigs and branches also restated some of these shadows in the tree canopy as well and again that's going to help to convey that sense of three-dimensional form. There were some dead branches in this tree as well that had this creamy white color to it so I was just marking in the suggestion of some of those branches and it's just adding interest to the tree overall. Really once you get to this point in the painting it's a lot easier I've done the hardest part of it and it's just adding those last details and highlights it's really bringing it to life and then I was working on the tree on the left and I was adding lighter layers of paint compared to the previous layers so you can see that it's lighter and it's just adding more definition and shape to the tree overall. So this is why I say in landscape painting when we're blocking in we don't want to go too light to begin with we want to hold off on our light so that we can build them up as we work through the painting and then we're saving our lightest lights until the very end and we can use the shadow mix to restate the dark values in the scene and further sculpt various elements that are in your landscape painting. So at this point I was just adding the finishing touches to the painting for example painting the cast shadow from this tree on the left now the light is facing the scene so there wasn't that many shadows in it however there is just enough shadows to make the whole thing look three dimensional. Then I was adding bits of details to some of this exposed dirt and rocks that are in the side of the hill here and generally just adding last little final details and highlights. I always find it a little bit tricky to know when to finish a painting normally I just finish it and I'll leave it for a few days and just come back to it and see if there's anything that I missed or anything else that needs adding to it. But at this point the painting was complete and then I got to do one of my favorite parts of these types of paintings is peeling off the masking tape so you can truly see the painting revealed. So I hope you enjoyed this painting demonstration if you'd like to see the full version and paint this yourself then come and join me at Sam's landscape painting school. Also don't forget to download your free landscape painting blueprint the links are in the description box below. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video