How To Draw: Watercolor Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree • Procreate Tutorial

drawing a fiddle leaf fig tree is way easier than you think and i'm going to show you exactly how you can do it no matter your skill level hello people it's genevieve and my goal here in this channel is teach you all about illustration and design so if you're new make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the weekly videos and so that you can join our wonderful creative community and with that said grab your drawing tools and let's get started in this video i'm going to be using procreate on the ipad pro but you can definitely follow along using your favorite digital art software the first thing to do is to create a new converse to drawing of course so here are the dimensions of the canvas that i am using but make sure that you create one that works with your own requirements for your own project if you're not sure what that means i have a video that i will link in description below and in the annotations right now in which i explain everything you need to know in order to pick a canvas size for digital art and the reason these are the mentions of my canvas is just because i'm painting in a pre-textured file which as you can see has some paper texture to it it is obviously optional but if you want to check it out it will be linked in description below it is part of my big brush bundle and with that out of the way let's start sketching so create a new layer and rename it to sketch now to sketch you can use whichever color that you like i like to just go with a pretty simple neutral gray but we won't see the sketch in the final results so seriously just pick whichever color that you want now in this video i'm always going to be suggesting two brushes one is going to be a free brush that comes with procreate and the other one is a brush that could help you bring your art to the next level save some time and get more professional results so it would be a watercolor brush that comes from my big brush bundle if you want to check it out it is linked in description below along with a special promo code for the youtube people so to sketch you can either use the hp pencil that comes in the sketching panel or the coloring pencil from the ultimate watercolor brushes honestly again the sketch we're not going to see in a final result so the brush doesn't matter at all and you can simply start by sketching your rectangle for the pot and here on this channel we're all about being loose in the sketch so don't worry about having one perfect line we're going to find the right one later when we add the color for now you can have a big mess of lines and once you have your pot just go ahead and draw a slightly curved line for the stem again don't worry you can have as many messy lines as you need and from there we're going to start adding the leaves and the thing with fiddly figs is the leaves are just these big triangular things so seriously you can have so much fun here and you don't need to over complicate it one thing to keep in mind though is you don't want them to all be pointing in the same direction and be fully flat so you can see here i'm drawing one that is kind of behind the stem and then another one that is hidden by one of the lower leaves and you can also kind of add this impression that they're folded so just kind of drawing these double lines uh it's going to make more sense when we're adding the colors but you can see in the example kind of what it's going to look like so just go ahead and draw a bunch of rounded triangles around your stem and once you're happy with the layer of release we're going to start adding the color [Music] and just before we start adding the color i like to set my sketch layer to multiply and then lower the opacity until you can just barely see it and setting it to multiply is optional but it's going to help to see the sketch better on darker colors that way you can then create a new layer putting it below the sketch and renaming it to leaves this layer is just normal blending mode and 100 opacity so for the color you want to pick a green that is pretty much right between yellow and blue and you want to make sure that is not too dark and not too bright either so kind of in the middle of your color chart i guess for the brush you can use in the air brushing panel the hard brush and then lower the opacity you can experiment with that somewhere you know around 50 is good and so if we draw now we're going to get some sort of an overlay effect which is going to be really really helpful for this water color to trial that being said you're not going to get any of the texture but you know that's fine you can still work around i'm going to show you a bunch of tricks on how to make it look more watercolor if you don't have the paper if you do have the watercolor brushes though go ahead and pick the dark edges watercolor and since we're using watercolor brushes or brush with a lower opacity we want to draw each leaf as possible in one stroke so without lifting the pencil basically so for that i highly recommend that you just start with the outline and then without lifting a pencil you just color it in it doesn't need to be super precise but that way we're going to avoid having some weird overlaps because overlaps are important but we want to use them right so for now just try to avoid creating any overlaps but if you do have some it's not the end of the world trust me and one thing that's really helpful as well with fiddle leaf figs their leaves are just all wobbly so it's fine if your shapes are kind of funky and a bit strange that's actually going to make your piece look even better in the end and it's time for the secret password so if you've watched this find the video please leave a comment saying houseplants i know it might sound a little bit crazy but it's been so great doing this over the past few weeks it's giving me a lot of insight into how to edit and paste my videos better which helps me create better tutorials for you guys it's also really cool because you guys know me but i don't know you so whenever you leave a comment i get to see your name or username face even sometimes and it's just great to see the wonderful creative community that we're building here on this channel so leave a comment saying houseplants and we'll keep going and once you have all your basic color all your leaves basically outlined filled in when you have your basic shapes for your leaves we're going to go in and add a little bit of color variation to make it feel more like watercolor so for that you can either use the medium brush making sure that you lower the opacity again or if you have the watercolor brushes go ahead and pick the basic watercolor brush which should be the first one and you can use the same color because we're just going to start layering so creating this overlay effect that we were talking about earlier so you can really place the overlay effect wherever you want i personally like to have it wherever there is a false in the leaf as you can see here and keep in mind that every time you lift a pencil it kind of resets the overlay so the more layers you do the darker and more intense the color is going to look so you can really take that to your advantage and you can see here i'm being really quick and loose because we do want to have some of these strange not super controlled lines because that's really what's going to give us the feel of watercolor we want to have something that looks organic that looks like it's flowing and looks like it's not perfectly you know straight and digital so go ahead and kind of scribble honestly you want to get something that looks a little bit random you do want to have some sharp edges where the leaf folds but you also want to make sure you have some more random splotches and scribbles because later in the process we're going to blend everything in together and this is really where we're going to be building the watercolor effect so this step is really important it is not a complicated one but make sure you take your time to do it properly and by properly i mean make sure you just do it and you can hide the sketch at this point it might be helpful to just see what you're working with and you're going to repeat this step at least two or three times with slightly different colors so here i'm just going to make my green a little bit more gray you might want to change the hue as well but for now i'm just going to keep it with the same same hue and just make it less saturated and with the same brush and the same technique which is just scribbling we're going to add this other color to add more color variation which is going to help us create a more realistic watercolor effect in the end so especially if you're using the free procreate brushes you want to make sure that you do this step multiple times to create some color variation and some randomness and the way the color is applied on your canvas so take your time here again it is not complicated you can see it looks really crazy right now but that is normal the crazier it looks the better it's going to look in the end so experiment here have fun get out your inner child and just scribble random colors and seriously nothing more complicated than that but take the time to do it it is so so so important i can't stress this enough so i'm going to do it one more time with a slightly different version of my green this time i'm going to make it way grayer and just pretty much going over the same spots but with random shapes again making it feel really really crazy and weird this is really a trust the process kind of situation but trust me and trust the process it's going to look good when we start blending everything in so again if you're using free brushes make sure that you do this step with you know at least two or three more colors to have as much variation as you can it's going to make a big difference in the end trust me once you have something roughly like that we're going to actually move on to creating the branch and the pot and then we're going to mix everything in together so go ahead and create a new layer rename it to branches and you can put it below the leaves layer if you're able to for some reason i was struggling but there we go we did it so you might want to reactivate a sketch in this case and just zoom in and for the color i recommend that you go with a brown that is not super dark and also not super saturated some something a little bit like that and in terms of brushes you can go back to either the hard brush in the airbrushing panel making sure again that the opacity is lowered or the dark edges watercolor and you're going to make sure that the brush itself is set to fairly small you're then going to draw one continuous line for the entire stem and you can then add two or three more at the bottom to kind of thicken the bottom of the stem and also create some of the bark feel to it so something like that you can also go ahead and add some little nubs um on the stem something super simple like this but it really helps i feel make the plant look a little bit more interesting and more full than to have just a straight you know stem in the middle so something like this honestly you're good to go we're then going to create the pot so for that create a new layer rename it to pot and you're going to keep it above the branches but below the leaves so for the pot layer you can really pick whichever color you want i'm just going to go with a terracotta pot so i'm just using the same brown as for the branch but i made it lighter so that way i know the browns are gonna work well together now tracing the pot can be a little bit tricky so don't worry if takes you a few times but try to draw the top in one swoop in one stroke so without lifting the pencil and then drawing the bottom again in one stroke without lifting the pencil if the shape is strange that's fine we're going to tweak it in the end it's okay for now just try to not have too many overlaps because again we want to control the overlaps as much as we can even if it means the shape is not perfect that's fine we're going to clean it i promise and just like for the leaves we're going to switch the brush back to either the medium brush or the basic watercolor brush and we're going to add the controlled overlaps so for the pot that might be kind of in the area where the top meets with the bottom you want to have a shadow there and you might also want to have a shadow on one side in my case i'm just going with the right side so i'm pretending that my light source is on the left of the pot so something like this nothing complicated and again make sure that you have kind of random little spots so that when we blend in everything later it does look a little bit more watercolor and less like digital painting or digital drawing and feel free to pause the video here to take all the time you need to add your color variation and we'll meet in the next step which is creating the digital or watercolor effects [Music] so at this point we want to hide the sketch because otherwise it's going to be really hard to work so just hide your layer and then we're going to blend all the crazy stuff that we've been drawing so that it actually starts looking good and for that you can either use the smudge tool here which is this um finger icon setting it to the soft brush smudge tools are available in most digital art software and usually it is a finger icon and if you have the watercolor brushes you can set your paint brush to the water blender so not this much tool really the paint brush and then all you're going to do is well as you can imagine blend the weird digital edges you don't want to blend everything in you want to make sure that the folds on the leaves still have crisp edges you just want to blend kind of the color variation blotches and splashes that you've drawn on your leaf that being said don't over blend them since we're drawing something with watercolor especially if you're using the smudge tool and the free brushes from procreate you want to make sure that there are still some splotches in there and some color variation that doesn't look really smooth because that's how you're building your watercolor texture so this step is super super important it's finding the right balance between blending and leaving some hedges basically so something like this is what you're aiming for and once your leaves are just blended enough go ahead and do the same thing on the pot so just switching to the pot layer with the same brush or the same smudge tool just going in and kind of blending not too much not too little just enough and make sure that you keep the separation between the top of the pot and the bottom of the pot that is an edge that needs to stay sharp now we're also going to blend in the branch or the stem however you will call it but for that you can switch if you have the watercolor brushes to the water drag otherwise you can just keep the exact same smudge tool and basically the water drag the way it works is you need to make a lot of small little strokes in the same direction that you want to blend so basically we're switching here because the water drag is a little bit more precise but also because it's going to allow you to retain a little bit more texture which is great because we want to have kind of the bark texture in the branch like i was telling you about when we were first drawing it so yeah water drag is going to allow you to retain that texture a little bit better and easier than the water blender and with that done we're ready for the magic trick that's really going to give you a lot of watercolor textures and color variation in your leaves so select the leaves layer and then use the selection tool set it to freehand and make sure that the color fail here option is deactivated you're then going to create a random wobbly shape in the bottom right section of your leaves and you're going to feather that selection somewhere between 15 and 20 percent around 20 honestly is good you're then going to select the adjustment panel hue saturation brightness apply it to the entire layer so this is going to allow you to change the colors of your selection so here since we're drawing the bottom we might want to create a shadow so you can lower the brightness a little bit you can also play with the hue maybe making this color a little bit more blue and maybe lowering the saturation so that it is slightly more gray and you can already see that you have so much more color variation in your piece already but we're going to repeat this step a few more times this time we're going to do it mostly focusing on the top of the tree so again a wobbly selection then feathering the selection somewhere you know around 20 and going back to hue saturation and brightness to the entire layer you are going to this time up the brightness to create some lights you might also want to shift the hue towards the left which is going to make it a little bit more yellow and you can either up or lower the saturation depending on what you want so these settings here you don't have to copy the numbers that i have you can really experiment and find something that you like it is for your personal preference but this is what i'm going to go with and you're going to repeat this step at least one last time but this time over the entire tree and you're going to feather this selection this time around 15 going back to the hue saturation brightness in the adjustment panel this time you're going to mostly play with the hue and the saturation so not much the brightness you can if you want but i like to just make it feel like we have different pigments of watercolor in there so changing the hue and the saturation mostly so you can see already archery is just totally different than it was before but we're going to add even more texture and even more details but before that don't forget to use the same selection technique on the pot so selecting the bottom right layer feathering the selection around 20 going back to hue saturation and brightness and lowering the brightness on the pot i just do it once just to add a little bit of a shadow i don't bother as much as for the leaves because the pot is not the main focus but you could redo the step a few times on the pot as well if you would like to [Music] and if you've made it this final video congrats that was the hardest part now we're just going to make everything look so so good by adding details so to start we're going to create a mask on our leaves layer so to do that just tap on the leaves layer and select mask in the layer option so everything we're going to erase on this layer mask is going to make a hole in the leaves layer behind it but it's not actually going to erase the color that we worked so hard to apply on the leaf layer so something like this you can see it looks like it erased but if we deactivate the mask no the leaves are still there if you're not familiar with masks and digital art i have a video that will link in description below in which i teach everything you need to know about masks and how to use them so you can definitely check it out but for now just go ahead and set your eraser to the soft airbrush that is in the airbrushing panel a very very small size and we're just going to erase the veins of the leaf so for that you can just start with one line in the middle of a leaf and then adding some secondary veins i guess that point slightly towards the top of the leaf and that are slightly curved so something a little bit like this it doesn't need to be perfect we're drawing it plant so it needs to look organic it needs to look natural flowy soft all of the above so make sure that you really lose in your wrists and if there is a line that you don't like just undo by the way if you want to undo and procreate just tap with three fingers on the screen you can also use the erasing technique to kind of sharpen the edge of the fold of the leaves so that can be useful but don't overdo it you want it to be very very subtle so something a little bit like what i just did right there and i'm gonna speed up the video a little bit here so that it doesn't take forever feel free to pause or just keep watching at the same time as i am drawing basically we're just doing the same thing over and over again which is drawing the middle stem and then adding some secondary middle vein i mean and then drawing some secondary veins that connect with the sides of the leaves and that's going to really bring your piece to life you can also use this layer to kind of erase any overlaps that you might have between leaves themselves or between the leaves and the middle stem so this layer is not necessarily a layer to clean up meaning if you have a leaf that is all weirdly shaped this is not the layer we're going to clean it up but if you do have some overlaps and things that you know are not supposed to be there this is where we're going to erase them and once you have all your veins erased we're actually going to exit the mask so just tapping on the leaves layer again now the leaves layer is going to be the one that is highlighted and with the same eraser we're going to actually go ahead and clean up everything that might be kind of strange so anything that you know you'd never want to bring back so like weird smudges or something like that you're going to erase no need to keep them by using the mask or something just get rid of them so erase them straight on the actual leaf layer and if you've drawn with the dark edges watercolor brush try to not erase too much of the edges of the leaves because if you do that you're going to lose some of the texture that comes with the brush which would be a shame but i mean you got to do what you got to do and once your leaves are all cleaned up go ahead and do the same thing with the pot and for the pot you might need to do a little bit of a more intense intervention in sense of like reshaping your pot um quite a lot so don't be afraid to do it this is the step to do it this is where you want to make sure that the pot is the shape you want it to be but don't worry too much about it being perfect because watercolor you have a little bit more leeway in the sense that it doesn't need to be you know the crispest and nicest shape it can be a little bit more organic and flowy and that's totally fine and don't worry if you end up with a gap between the pot and the plant you can just use the arrow tool to lift up the plant the pot a little bit and you're gonna fix it in just a few seconds and although the plant looks almost done right now believe me this next step is the most important of the entire tutorial so don't skip it it is to create a new layer above everything renaming it to details and lowering the opacity for now we're just going to put it at around 50 percent keeping the blending mode and normal and you're gonna pick a dark dark spot on your leaves so one of the darkest spots now for the brush you can either use the hb pencil in the sketching panel if i can find it there we go or if you have the watercolor brush let's go back to the coloring pencil and here what we're going to do is we're going to add some details to really make this tree come to life so i like to kind of outline the area where the leaves are folding over each other so kind of something like this and i also like to outline the veins so i'm going to do it on the sleeve here because you're going to see it really well but just one side of the vein i add a dark outline to kind of make it pop a little bit more i also like to do that with the secondary vein so you can see kind of creates a little triangle um in the corner one of the corners of these section of the leaf if that doesn't make a lot of sense don't worry just look at the video and it will be really clear i promise so you can do that on all of your leaves and you can also kind of roughly outline some parts of the outlines or the outside of the leaves so the edges to kind of make them pop a little bit more make sure that you don't overdo it though because otherwise it's going to start looking less like watercolor but if you do it just a little bit it is just going to make like i was saying your piece pops so much more and for now the opacity is quite high of this layer so the lines look quite intense but don't worry we're going to lower the opacity once we're done with everything so that they blend in really really well we're also going to use this layer to draw the veins on the folded part of the leaf so just pretend that the vein is going over the folded part and then creates a v so something like that and we're just going to keep the second part of the v so just pretend and then flip pretend and then flip so that way you are sure that the veins are roughly lining up with the inside and the outside meaning the folded part and the non-folded part so we're gonna do it on this side as well so pretend then flip pretend and flip pretend then flip pretend flip pretend flip and i'm just going to add an extra one here otherwise it looks a little bit strange and you can also kind of blend them with the bottom line the bottom edge of the folded leaf just a little bit something like this and seriously that's it and we're just going to repeat the same technique on all the leaves and trust me once you're done with the step you're going to be so happy you did it so make sure you take all the time you need it should not be super long here we're really going kind of quickly with the strokes we're not you know we're kind of using a sketching approach to these strokes they're not perfect and smooth and like straight and beautiful outlines or rougher outlines and sketchier lines but still take the time to do it and this is what's going to make your piece feel complete and professional as opposed to a little bit you know more blend i guess if i want to be polite so feel free to pause the video here and we'll meet on the next step which is adding more details on the pot and then adding even more watercolor effects on your whole piece okay so once you have a bunch of details on your leaves outlines and everything it is time like i was saying to actually play with opacity so that everything blends in it's going to depend on your own colors that you use so go ahead and pick something that you like in my case it was around 38 and then we're going to add the same little technique for the pot so picking a dark brown that was on the pot and then just adding some details in my case i'm pretty much just going with this line here between the top and the bottom of the pot and then just kind of refining the corners a little bit but nothing more because again we want the leaves and the tree to be the focus part not the pot another really fun thing you can do is adding some splatters so to do that create a new layer above everything rename it to splatters in this layer we're going to change the blending mode of to linear burn it's just going to make the splotches blend better with the base color and you might want to lower the opacity around you know 70 but you can always tweak it later you're going to go back and pick the green that you use for the leaves and either use the splatter brush that comes in the watercolor bundle or on these spray paint brushes that comes with procreate there is a spreader brush but it looks quite strange so i would not necessarily recommend it you can use the chicle brush here it is quite dense but it's better than nothing you can also draw splatters by hand which is the regular hard brush but yeah if you have the watercolor brushes just use the splatter brush and you can see it is super easy and it just kind of ties in the piece together make sure you don't overdo it though you just want to have a few splatters here and there nothing more than that and you can also kind of add some that are brown around the pot if you want uh it is optional i'm gonna do it i just think you know little details like this makes the piece really more coherent and just looks more finished overall and this little tree here is really nice but it looks a little bit lonely on the white page so i highly recommend you go ahead and check out this video in which i'm going to teach you how to draw a monster raw so that you can have more house plans in your illustration so just click on the link right here and i'll meet you there

Channel: Genevieve's Design Studio

Views: 207,461

Rating: 4.9630876 out of 5

Keywords: you can draw this leaf, easy procreate tutorial, procreate drawing, procreate, how to draw, art channel, you can draw this plant, watercolour, digital art tutorial beginners, tutoriel, plant art, Procreate art, ipad art, procreate tutorial, procreate drawing tutorial, procreate watercolor, ipad pro 2021, digital painting, you can draw this ficus, you can draw this fiddle leaf fig, how to draw a plant, watercolor plant procreate, plant drawing, genevieve's design studio, drawing

Id: 8-FddSMeL5c

Length: 27min 34sec (1654 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021