Welcome to the last in the current series about watercolour fundamentals.

Stop Painting Every Leaf

Simplifying a Scene Without Losing the Magic

A common frustration in watercolour is trying to capture everything and ending up with something that looks busy and confusing.

When we care about a subject, we want to include all the little details that made us love it in the first place, but this can make a painting look cluttered.

Strong watercolours are rarely about more detail. They’re about clear shapes, a focal point, and suggestion.

Simplification is all about deciding what to leave in and what to leave out. Once mastered, your paintings will feel calmer, more confident, and easier to look at.

Think Shapes, Not Things

Instead of thinking subject (tree, house, bush, flower), consider the shape they project. Imagine looking at the scene and then unfocusing your eyes until you see a combination of:

• Big light shapes
• Medium mid-tone shapes
• Smaller dark shapes

For example:

• A basic cottage might present as a main light shape (the walls) with a darker shape (the roof) and a few small dark accents (windows, door).
• A tree line might be a single mid-tone shape stretching across the page with a few darker touches for trunks and shadows.

If you begin by seeing the scene as a handful of simple shapes, you’re less likely to get lost in the tiny details too early.

Try a Thumbnail Sketch

Before you reach for your brushes, grab a pencil and create a quick, tiny sketch — just a few centimetres across.

In this small sketch, aim to:

• Draw out the main shapes (sky, land, buildings, trees, flowers).
• Identify where your lightest lights, mid-tones, and darkest darks will be.
• Decide the focal point — where you want the viewer’s eye to rest.

Think of the sketch as a map of what the final piece will be. It helps you avoid getting halfway through a painting and realising you’ve given equal attention to everything.

Terry often worked from simple sketches or reference ideas, and Fiona does the same with her florals and botanicals. These sketches map out just enough to know where she’s going in the painting.

Choosing a Focal Point

When you look at an image, your eye will naturally be drawn to a certain part. This is the focal point.

It can be anything you like: a doorway in a cottage, a boat in a harbour, or even the main flower in a larger bouquet.

Once you’ve identified it, you can emphasise it with one or more of the following:

• Add more contrast by using stronger darks against a lighter background.
• Use sharper edges around the point of focus.
• Keep surrounding areas a little softer and simpler.

Less is more. This can be subtle — often a gentle emphasis is enough.

Leaving Details Out

Simplification is often more about what you don’t paint than what you do. Sometimes a suggestion is more effective than detail.

Here are a few things you can safely reduce or suggest:

• Individual leaves on a distant tree — use broader shapes and foliage marks instead (Terry’s specialist brushes are particularly useful for this).
• Bricks in a wall — suggest texture with broken brushwork rather than painting every brick.
• Grass — a few directional strokes usually give all the impression you need (Terry’s Fan Gogh, Fan Stippler and Wizard brushes are perfect for this).
• Background clutter — cars, bins, signs and small objects can often be omitted or softened into basic shapes.

If you’re unsure what to leave out, ask yourself:

“If I leave this out, will the painting still make sense and look clear?”

If the answer is yes, consider simplifying or removing it.

Suggestion: Using the Viewer’s Imagination

One of the wonderful powers of painting is suggestion — asking the viewer’s eye to complete the picture.

To achieve this, provide a hint of an object without all the detail. For instance:

• Indicate windows with just a few rectangles and shadows.
• Suggest distant crowds or foliage with soft, broken marks.
• Hint at flowers in a border with dabs of colour rather than fully drawn petals.

This keeps the painting from becoming fussy, while adding a sense of life and movement.

Would You Like Help Deciding What to Leave Out?

Simplification can feel a little uncomfortable at first, especially if you’re used to copying every detail from a photograph. But with a bit of guidance, it quickly becomes one of the most freeing parts of painting.

Why not have a look at some of Terry and Fiona’s painting tutorials to see how they use simplification and suggestion? I’ve made a few available for free at the moment (December 2025)

Free tutorials:

• Cley Windmill
• After the Storm
• Simplified Flowers

If you’d like your paintings to feel calmer, clearer, and less “busy,” visit the Terry Harrison film library or Fiona Peart’s courses. Follow along and focus on simplifying, creating clear shapes, choosing a focal point, and painting just enough detail to tell the story.

Happy Painting
Martin