Autumn Leaves

 Autumn Leaves  ( below) is the finished painting from my step by step tutorial published in the Nov issue of Leisure painter.

 The tutorial includes painting in layers glazing with transparent watercolours, use of masking fluid for veins as well as use of spattering, salt and clingfilm to create textures.

 It is inspired by the beautiful Autumn leaves locally.

 TIP They are lovely when freshly collected but soon shrivel up and lose their colour. I use my printer to scan or do a colour photocopy. See below.

Transparent layers of colour over yellow.

Paint splattered using an old toothbrush

masking fluid and layers of colour

The cling film is applied to the wet background wash and removed when dry or just damp.

The magazine is available from newsagents or as a back copy online  here or as a digital version from here


The cover above shows the finished painting from a watercolour landscape tutorial by Gwen Scott

Painting Snow, Leisure Painter Magazine

Snow on Headley Heath  (c) Tessa Spanton

 watercolour  14x11in

Headley Heath is fairly local to me and is one of my favourite places to visit for landscape painting. 

It was a favourite of our dog too for picking up big sticks to carry, blackberrying fetching her ball and chasing but never catching rabbits.

There are little hills and valleys and glimpses to the North Downs, silver birch trees, gorse, heather in season, highland cattle and small ponds sometimes frozen in the winter.

You can see some of my paintings  here

The painting above is in this month's Leisure Painter magazine as the  subject of a step by step demo that I wrote. 'Quick tips for painting snow.' I like to see the colours in freshly fallen snow on a sunlit day but as for slushy suburban snow the sooner it melts the better.

March issue published on Feb 1st and also available as a digital version. from here