Herbal Watercolor Tutorial + a Free Printable

I’ll be frank with you: I have one objective every Mother’s Day, and that’s to out-do my two brothers with gift-giving. I know they’re sitting at home right now plotting how to top me this year {because that’s all that boys in their early 20’s have to do on Friday nights, right?}, but I’ve come up with what I believe to be the ultimate Mother’s Day gift. If you follow this herbal watercolor tutorial, you just may find yourself being victorious over your siblings, too!

The first thing I did for this tutorial was make a trip to the local thrift shop to find four different frames. After some intense rummaging, I found frames that I liked and could envision in my mom’s house. If you follow my lead and do some frame thrifting, you might experiment with arranging the frames in different layouts on the floor of the store. That way, you can ensure that if your herbal watercolor recipient wants to make a frame collage on the wall, it will look natural. Also, you’ll want to double-check to make sure all your frames have hangers on the back.

Once you retrieve your frames, you’ll know the size of the herbal watercolor painting(s) that you’ll need to create. In my case, I had three 5″x7″ frames and one 8″x10″ frame. I procured a 140 lb. cold press watercolor pad and cut four pieces of paper to the sizes that I needed.

I won’t bore you by detailing how I painted all four herbs, so I have chosen to show you how I painted the basil. The technique I used for this herb, of course, is the technique I used for the other three. It’s also the technique that you can use to paint the herb(s) of your choice! I began by taking a photo of my basil. You are welcome to use this as a reference photo as well; simply right-click the photo and select “Save”.

Of course, you can get a random photo from the internet, but it’s always better to take your own photo if you can. That way, you can arrange the herbs as you wish.

Once I took my basil photo, I imported it in to Photoshop and put text under it reading “BASIL”. You can easily do this in a program like Microsoft Word or even Google Docs {though it’s not a necessary step}.

After you modify the photo to your liking, you’ll want to print out the photo and text {if applicable}. Then, you’ll put the printout behind your piece of 8″x10″ watercolor paper and put the whole shebang on a light box. {By the way, there’s a light box giveaway going on right now — visit this blog post to enter!} Note that if you don’t have a light box, a bright window should work fine … though you’ll find yourself at a bit of an uncomfortable angle.

At this point, you’ll want to select the colors that will be present in your herbal watercolor painting. I have chosen a simple little palette consisting of Serpentine Green, Bismuth Yellow, and Perylene Green {all from the Greenleaf & Blueberry Altoids tin set}, and for my dark/shading color, I chose Violet Hematite. Honestly, though, you can choose whatever colors you want. Just make sure you have two relatively light colors, and two relatively dark colors.

First, you’ll want to cover the entire piece of basil with one shade of light green. To make faster work of this task, I used a relatively large brush {well, for me, at least} — a Grumbacher size 3 Goldenedge 4620 Round. I love using a light box to get this project started in this way for two reasons. First of all, it allows you to create an accurate layout without making pencil guidelines, which can be hard to completely erase from watercolor pieces. Secondly, it’s a big timesaver! You get your layout right the first time without frustration.

I have to say that when I was growing up, I would occasionally hear that using a light box was “cheating”, so I never touched one. But, you know what? Now that I’m older, I realize that time is valuable. If you can take a little shortcut like this to save time, pff!, I say go for it! The personality in these herbal watercolor paintings absolutely come from the details, anyway, which you’re not going to use the light box for. That said, I love using the light box to make layout — and the text! Remember how I showed you how to make the ombré watercolor letters in the Three Easy Mail Art Ideas post? Same principle here. Start by painting over the top of your letter with a light green …

Then, blend a darker green into that {I’m using Perylene Green}. When I say “blend”, by the way, all I really mean is paint the darker green where the lighter green ends. If you can clearly see the juncture between the two colors when you’re finished putting on the darker green, wet your brush with only water {no paint}. Then, put your wet brush at the juncture and gently move it back and forth between the two {but keep your brush in the immediate region of the juncture}. Voilà! Your colors will re-hydrate and blend together.

You’ll want to end the letter with a dark shade. Of course, my dark shade is the Violet Hematite, but you really could go with whatever you want here. Rather than a violet, you might choose to use a dark blue or a dark brown. You’re good with anything that meshes with green, really.

Once you create your layout and letters, you’re done with the light box. As you put it away, you might give it an affectionate pat for saving you so much time!

At this point, though, you’ll also need to get yourself ready for some serious watercoloring. Put on some good music, grab a cup of tea/coffee, and get comfortable … this step will require a little bit of patience {but I have complete and total faith in your skills}! I’m going to walk you through this to the best of my ability, and if you’re confused about something, please, feel free to ask. Be sure and have your reference photo handy, because that’s what you’re working off of.

When you have a cluster of leaves like at the top of the basil, it’s a good idea to make some little guidelines for yourself to show the shape of all the leaves. I use a paintbrush and more light green paint to do this.

The trick to drawing any herb is taking it one element at a time. In this case, you’ll want to focus on one leaf, completely finish it, then move on to the next. I prefer to do it this way because I find that if I try to do a little of this and a little of that on all leaves at the same time, I get overwhelmed. So: pretend that each leaf you are working on is the only leaf, do your best to make it a lovely leaf, then move on. And, crucially, remember that your aim is not perfection. If it were, you’d just frame a photo and not bother with making a painting that is uniquely “you”.

All that said, the first thing you’ll focus on is shading. Look at the leaf in your reference photo and try to see where the little shadows are in that leaf. Paint those shadows on your leaf with your dark green.

Once you paint your shadows, you’ll want to blend them in to the leaf. The reason for this is if you leave them as-is, your leaf will look segmented. “Blend” is an intimidating verb if you are new to using watercolors, but blending is more simple with this type of paint than any other. Just do like you did with the letters early in this tutorial, wet your brush with just water, then rub the bristles at the edges of your shadow. Your goal, basically, is to tease out the edges of the shadow so the shadow fades from dark green into the light green color. Note that your dark green paint can be completely dry and you’ll still be able to blend it. You can see me blending with water below:

After your dark green shadows are painted, it’s time to go in and add your darkest color! You’ll figure out where that color should be by observing your leaf in the reference photo again. Look at where the darkest shadows are, and that’s where you’ll paint the darkest color. You should be painting over some of the shadows you painted using the darker green.

If you get confused about where to paint your shadows, that’s okay. Remember, you’re not aiming for perfection. Just do your best! Even if the shadows aren’t accurately placed, you’ll still have an amazing contrast, which is what makes the piece visually appealing.

You’ll use the technique outlined above for every leaf. The series of photos below will show you how I painted one leaf at a time.

Don’t be afraid to use a high concentration of the dark green and your other, darker shade {in my case, the Violet Hematite}. A lot of people are afraid to put a lot of contrast in their pieces, but contrast will make the piece look realistic. More contrast will result in leaves that actually look 3D.

Just keep painting one leaf at a time until you’re finished! Remember, this isn’t necessarily a speedy project, and the larger the painting, the longer it will take you to paint. This basil {size 8″x10″} took me a little over three hours to paint; but they were three enjoyable hours of being “in the zone”.

I was thinking while I was painting that I should ask you: would a tutorial over some basic watercolor tips and techniques be helpful? If so, what questions do you have about using watercolor? Watercolor is such an approachable, friendly medium, and anyone who has a mind to be good at it can “get there”! I really mean that. I don’t want you to feel like you should automatically know how to blend or how to pair colors or whatever. So, if you have any questions, I’d very much like to encourage you to comment. If it would help you to read a from-scratch watercolor tutorial, I’d be more than happy to write one!

I also realize that you may like the look of these herbal watercolor paintings, but you may not have the time to paint them before Mother’s Day. I have made the basil painting into a free printable for you to either print off and give to Mom or just keep for yourself. I really like the result of this project, and while I’m a generous daughter who is giving Mom the original, I’m also printing off a copy for my kitchen. You may download your basil printable here; it’s available in size 4″x6″, 5″x7″, and 8″x10″.

I created three other illustrations as well: chives, thyme, and oregano. You may purchase them for $3.25 apiece {click here for chives, click here for thyme, or click here for oregano} , or you may purchase the set of three for $6.50. I’m selling them for that price because I want you to be able to buy them if you like them, and subsequently do whatever makes you happy with them. You can keep them for yourself and display them in your own home, give them to your mom for Mother’s Day in either matching or mismatched frames {as I did}, pin a couple up in your office … really, do as you please! They each come in size 4″x6″, 5″x7″, and 8″x10″ as well. Let’s talk printing, though. You can either:

• Print them off at home, which is very cost-effective, cheap, and quick. Depending on your printer, a disadvantage may be not-so-optimal print quality.
• Have them printed off at a local printing shop or office supply store like FedEx/Kinkos. To do this, you’ll send the printing shop the file and let them know how many you want of each, and what size. This is pretty cost-effective and higher quality than printing at home.
• For the highest-quality print, you can upload the images you want printed out to finerworks.com. I’d recommend getting them printed out on Premium Giclee Paper; note that you’ll have to input a custom size in the first column. Ordering a borderless painting should be just fine.

If your head is spinning from those printing options {if you have questions about printing, by the way, please feel free to ask}, you can bypass the printing step and order physical products with these illustrations on them from the TPK Society 6 shop:

• Find products featuring the basil illustration here.
• Find products featuring the thyme illustration here.
• Find products featuring the oregano illustration here.
• Find products featuring the chives illustration here.

Again, I’d love to hear your input on whether I can be of help with watercolor techniques! I hope this post has inspired you to create the perfect Mother’s Day gift, and I also hope you have a great weekend.

Thanks very much for reading!

Warmly,