Painting Trees in Watercolor: Why You Need Sky Holes

Sky holes are the gaps in a tree's canopy where you can see sky or whatever's behind it. Trees are both solid and see-through at the same time, so painting a light wash of your background objects behind the tree, rather than stopping them at the tree's edge, is what makes the tree read as believable.

Why This Matters

Beginners often paint trees as one solid, opaque mass, which is what makes them look flat and unconvincing. In reality, most trees let some light and background through their branches. Letting your background wash continue behind and through the tree canopy captures that partial transparency, without needing to paint every individual gap by hand.

This is genuinely good news for looser painting styles too, since it means you don't have to render every leaf and branch perfectly. Give your trees a little room to breathe, and the sky holes will do a lot of that believability work for you.

Try This

Before you paint your tree, lay down a light wash of whatever's behind it, sky, hills, buildings, and let that wash continue past where the tree canopy will sit. Then paint your tree loosely over that background, allowing small gaps to show the wash you already painted through. Resist the urge to fully cover every part of the canopy.

Want to Go Deeper?

If you liked this, this related Quick Tip covers another technique specifically for painting trees, using blurred background branches instead of sky holes to create depth and a focal point:

How to Create Depth in Trees with Watercolor

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