For the third Mindfultober 2025 prompt, Grow, we’re going to paint leaves with a single brush stroke, creating lovely loose botanical watercolours, while painting mindfully.

What You’ll Need

• Watercolour paints – I’m using a beginners Windosr & Newton set, but any of your favourite watercolour paints will work.
• Watercolour paper.
• A round brush.
• A jar of water.
• A mixing palette.

Step-by-Step Mindful Watercolour Leaves Tutorial:

Step 1: Prepare your colours

For pans, place a few drops of clean water into each paint pan you want to use to activate the pigment and let them sit for a minute or two. For tubes, squeeze out a small amount and mix with water to get a very wet / milky consistency. Once ready, mix up whichever colours you’d like to use today.

Step 2: Paint your first stalk

Load up your brush with paint, then make a long s-curving line. This will act as the stalk to which your leaves attach. You want this line to be damp when you do the next step, so add extra paint if required.

Step 3: Paint your first leaves

Starting at the stalk, use one smooth movement of your brush to create the leaf shape. Begin with your brush held vertically to create a thin line. As you pull away from the stalk, angle your brush more towards the horizonal to create a broader line. This creates the main body of the leaf. Then draw your brush back to vertical to narrow the leaf at the tip.

Paint as many leaves as you like coming from the stalk. You can choose to have them come out in an alternating pattern, as shown below, or in pairs like in the header image.

I like to make the leaves smaller, the closer they are to the end of the stalk.

Step 4: Paint your second stalk

I think the leaves look nicest where there are several stalks, so go ahead and paint in a second stalk. As with the first one, make sure the line stays damp for when you add the leaves.

You can see below, I’m adding more paint in where the paper was thirsty and soaked up all my paint.

Step 5: Paint your second set of leaves

Add leaves to your second stalk.

I like to use a different colour for each stalk as I think this creates a pleasing amount of variety. That said, feel free to experiment to see what you enjoy.

Take your time and enjoy the feel of your brush on the page. If you listen carefully, you can often hear it.

Step 6: Paint your third stalk

I think odd numbers of things look visually pleasing, so add a third stalk.

Step 7: Paint your third set of leaves

Following the same process as before, add your third set of leaves.

You might decide at this point that your painting is finished, or you might add more stalks. These can overlap the existing ones, taking advantage of the beautiful transparency of watercolours.

Step 8: Let it dry

Once it’s dry, enjoy your finished piece!

Taking It Further

If you’d like to learn more about this technique, including wet-in-wet colour mixing, composition tips and gestural mark-making, I have a class dedicated to this activity:

Loose Watercolor Painting for Self-Care: The Art of Mindful Mark-Making

Final Thoughts

I think creating leafy mindful watercolour paintings like these is a great way to slow down, relax, and explore your paints without pressure. Remember this is about process not outcome. It’s about the soothing feeling of brush on paper, playing with colours and layers, and giving yourself a few moments of calm.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with this. If you do try it out, let me know what you think of it in the comments below!

Happy painting – and happy Mindfultober!