Foliage

In The Woods At Night
Watercolour on Paper
16.5cm x 24.5cm (6.5" x 9.5")

Foliage is the fifth topic in the Tree Techniques chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice. 

In one of her examples she shades around some leaves to make them pop out of the picture. This reminded me of a layering technique John Lovett explains in his Textures, Techniques & Special Effects for Watercolor.  He uses negative painting to create the impression of layers of objects stacking on top of each other. Your start with a light wash, then you paint everything that’s not in the top layer with a slightly darker wash, then everything that’s not in the top 2 layers with a darker wash again, and so on. Once you have built up the layers, you go back to add texture and details.

The picture at the top of the post is based on 8 layers. Before I started painting, I painstakingly worked out the shape of what I was painting in each layer. 

In The Woods At Night - Layer 3

This is the third layer. The black is the area that I am not painting over. 

In The Woods At Night - Layer 4

This is the 4th layer. You paint less and less in each layer. Each time you paint an object it gets darker and recedes further into the shadows. I've been meaning to try this for years, so it's exciting to finally give it a try.