Autumn trees

2 October 2025

Video - Level ◆◆◆

Let's paint vibrant, loose autumn trees. For this lesson we focus on how to paint a feature autumn tree in a landscape. One that is close to the foreground or our focal point and has lots of lovely detail.

We do two different trees - a red maple and a golden poplar. First we look at how to draw the shape of the tree, then we look at all the different colours we can see and create the colour swatches. When we paint the trees I encourage you to work as wet and as loose as possible so that we don't have to paint any individual leaves at all. At the end you should have a tree full of life and movement.

Plus now's the time to get out all your vibrant autumn colours!

This lesson is a compliment to 2 others we have for trees already - one for summer trees and one for distant trees and forests. You can do the lessons in any order.

I've attached a downloadable worksheet at the end of the lesson for you to save and keep.

Happy painting!