To paint a fern stem you need to focus on controlled repetition, using deliberate mark-making to depict the intricate leaves of this beautiful plant. A fern frond features pinna leaflets, the secondary stems that branch out from the left and right of the main stem, which in turn hold the pinnules, the little leaves that grow out from either side of these smaller stems.
MATERIALS
› Hot-pressed watercolor paper
› Pencil
› Mixing palette
› Scrap watercolor paper for color testing
› Water jars
› No. 1 round brush
› No. 00 round brush
Sap Green
Cadmium Yellow
Base color
Sap Green + Cadmium Yellow
Details
Sap Green
1/ If drawing your own curved fern frond, notice that the pinna leaflets are not positioned directly opposite one another. Mark on the stalk where the leaflets stem from, starting small at the top and progressively getting larger until the middle, where they then get progressively smaller again. Then draw in single lines showing the direction of the pinnules that make up the pinna, so that there are two rows per leaflet.
2/ Practise painting the pinnae on scrap paper. To make a clean, deliberate mark you need a little water on the brush to help the paint move while retaining control. Dip a wet No. 1 round brush in the base color mix so there is enough pigment on it to paint the whole first row of pinnules. Practise painting each pinnule going from large to small, so each one gets slightly smaller with each brushstroke. For each repetition, position the brush at the same angle and make the same stroke. Paint the whole of the top row of pinnules, then move on to the bottom row. The pinnules do not have to match completely in size, but do need to follow the same large-to-small scale.
3/ Working on the drawing, dip the No. 00 round brush in the base color to paint the four small leaves right at the top of the stem. These leaves are the least defined, so you can make them the most abstract. The brush should be a little wet, but with enough pigment to make a deliberate mark on the dry page. Paint from the stem outwards, concentrating more of the pigment at the stem of the leaf and dragging it outwards so that there’s less pigment at the edges.
4/ Pull the paint down the main stem to the first pinna. Paint each pinna one by one, using the No. 1 paintbrush and the same paint mix. Make sure you have enough pigment on the brush to complete one row of pinnules in one go. Make deliberate oval-like shapes with a slight point for the pinnules. You can create some really nice effects using this method, since at the start there is more pigment on the brush and by the end your marks should be getting fainter.
5/ Once all the pinnules of that pinna are painted, dip the brush in a little water and gently run it along the centre of the leaflet, blending the pinna and joining the pinnules. Continue this process, working down the main stem, to complete all the pinnae. Make sure the leaflets change scale, increasing and decreasing paintbrush size as necessary.
6/ Let the leaves dry, then use the No. 00 brush to add details in Sap Green. Work from top to bottom, adding Sap Green near the base and in the centre of each pinnule to give it shadow. Mark in where the pinnae connect to the main stem and add more detail to the stem itself.
