Important Tip: It’s helpful to take a step back from time to time and see how your wreath is shaping up! You can get some perspective on where there is too much white space or maybe where the shape is getting out of whack. And remember you can stop adding layers at any point!! It’s your wreath and your call!
How to Paint a Layered Shamrock Wreath with Watercolor
I thought we could start by practicing a clover or shamrock shape. I make mine with teardrop shaped leaves that touch at their tops. You’ll see in the photo I start with two leaves opposite each other and then add the other two. Then I fill them in and, before they are completely dry, I add a little squiggle line of white gouache with my size 2 brush. This fun detail really makes it all work! I used straight sap green here and white gouache, but a white pen could also work for this detail. Just make sure your leaf is dry if using a pen.
Step 2: Paint Your “Anchor” Shamrocks
Now let’s start our wreath! I like to anchor two “corners” of my wreath with the most prominent detail. Let’s paint three sap green shamrocks in the upper right and in the lower left of our circle. I used a size 6 brush for this part. You’ll see I positioned mine so that some leaves are overlapping others. The key here is to let the first leaf dry before you paint the leaf that’s “under” the other one. Make the “underneath” leaf darker than the one on top as if there is a shadow on the lower leaf.
Important Tip: If you have trouble keeping your wreaths circular, lightly trace a bowl or glass to give yourself a “go by” line to follow. Just remember if you paint over your pencil line, you won’t be able to erase it later. If you use dark enough paint, you won’t see it anyway.
Step 3: Add First Layers of Leaves
Now it’s time to start adding in leaves in varying shades and shapes! Get some green gold on your brush (size 6 or 10 will work!) and let’s add a branch of two-stroke leaves on either side of our shamrocks (see 1 in photo above). I did my leaves all toward the inside of the wreath. Then get some nice dark undersea green and let’s make some elongated, one-stoke leaves as shown in 2 in the photo above. You can see we are getting a nice round shape going! To keep things varied, let’s add in some small leaves turning toward the center in a mix of sap green and green gold (see 3 in photo above). I used a size 2 brush here and made tiny leaves with two stokes, leaving a little white space in the center. Finally, let’s keep rounding out our wreath by adding some additional two stroke leaves on the outside of our original leaves (see 4 in photo above) and around our shamrocks (see 5 in photo above). You can use the layering technique here to put some leaves under the shamrocks.
Important Tip: It really doesn’t matter what greens you are using and/or mixing. The key is just to have some variation between your leaves to add contrast and keep it from being kind of boring!
Abstract Shamrock Art
1. To make the leaves of the shamrock, fold a small piece of paper in half. Here I am using a sticky note. Draw half a heart shape along the fold. Cut it out and you should have a heart shape. Lightly trace it four times onto your paper or canvas.
Erase extra lines and add a stem to the bottom.
2. Use a ruler and lightly draw lines across the page. The more lines, the more shapes you will paint or colour.
3. Fill in the shamrock with various tints and shades of green. To mix your own green, mix blue and yellow together. A tint is a colour with white added to it. A shade is a colour with black added to it.
To learn how to mix other colours, check out our colour theory worksheet.
When you are filling in the shapes of the shamrock, make sure no two of the same colours are touching. Continue adding colour until the shamrock is filled with green!
4. For the background you can use as many colours as you’d like. A rainbow would be cool! For this I chose purple and made tints and shades. Fill in all the shapes and then you’re done!
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