Painting Negative Space

One of the most common mistakes that students make when painting trees is to paint the trunks and branches a dark, solid brown.  The second mistake is trying to paint the light foliage over the dark trunk.  Paint the light foliage first, and then bring the dark trunk up to the foliage shapes.

One way to approach this problem is to paint the negative background spaces darker than the tree trunk.  As the background gets lighter, you can then paint the trunks as a positive (See right side of the painting.)

In this painting I also introduced arbitrary color in the background foliage.  Hooker's Green is a rather boring, flat color.  I always mix my greens to get some variety in the area.  Gradation of color and value also creates variety and interest as well as a three dimensional feeling.  Really look at trees and their values as related to the background.  Avoid that flat, dull brown in tree trunks.