A tree is a wonderful subject for beginning painters with acrylics, or for experienced artists learning a new medium. The live specimens are easy to find, they never shift positions (unlike human subjects) and they don't mind being stared at. Every tree is different so look for the right one before beginning your painting.
Instructions
1. Prepare your materials. Because trees are so commonly known and so often seen, most people will paint a tree without looking at one. The results are likely to be generic and un-inventive. For this reason, it is best to paint from a live subject or from a photograph rather than from imagination. Set up your canvas wherever you are going to do the painting, and study your subject. You may wish to make one or two sketches or pastel studies of the tree before you begin.
2. Start with the base of the trunk and move upward, using a flat medium-sized brush or a palette knife. Study the form of the trunk. Some trunks (particularly those of coniferous trees) will proceed upward in a straight line with branches protruding from it at nearly 90 degree angles. The trunk will get thinner and thinner until it ends at the top.
Other trees (primarily deciduous trees) will have trunks that curve, split or branch off. Although you won't be painting every tiny little branch or stick, paint the major branches you can see.
3. Add texture to the bark with a smaller detail brush. Because you are working with acrylic, if you wait very long to do this, the tree trunk will dry quickly and the details will not blend into the trunk. Instead, they will rest on top of it. This may not be a desired effect, so you must act quickly.
4. Begin applying the leaves or pine needles (where applicable) with a pointed medium-sized brush. Apply paint for the leaves in quick brush strokes. Because you will not be painting each individual leave, the green you use should not be a flat color, but should have a mixture of yellows and browns (or whatever is appropriate).
5. Highlight some of the leaves (or needles) with a lighter green or a greenish-yellow with a small pointed brush on the side where the sun is shining. Highlights should be applied in quick brush strokes shortly after the regular body of leaves has been completed. If you wait too long, the highlights will not blend well.
6. Quickly add shadows with a darker green or a brown, with a small pointed brush on the side where the sun is not shining.
7. Add a shadow at the base of the trunk with a flat brush, on the far side from the sun. If grass is growing under the tree, the shadow will be a darker green than the grass around it. If the base of the tree is mud or dirt, the shadow will be a darker brown than the mud around it.
8. With a detail brush, add any details missing from the tree, like pine cones, animals and nests.
