Don’t Paint Every Leaf: Simplifying a Lush Forest Landscape (Challenge #212)
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This week, we are travelling to a wonderfully cool and green corner of central Italy: the Trevi nel Lazio Waterfall (Cascata di Trevi nel Lazio) in the province of Frosinone. Hidden within the Monti Simbruini Regional Park, the waterfall lies at Comunacque, where the Simbrivio stream meets the Aniene River. Water tumbles into a small pool surrounded by dense vegetation, rocks and moss, creating the crystal-clear emerald water visible throughout this week's references. The area also has a connection to ancient Roman history: it served as a water source for an aqueduct built in the 1st century AD.
Our co-host and photo provider this week is @sara_watercolor_, who visited the area during July. Sara described it as a perfect escape from the “merciless Roman heat”, and looking at these photographs, I can understand why! A short trail leads from the main road down into this shaded, water-filled landscape, where almost everything seems to be green.
And all that green creates a fascinating challenge for us as artists. At first glance, these photographs are incredibly inviting. But once you start thinking about painting them, you notice just how much information they contain: leaves, branches, rocks, moss, reflections, ripples, grasses, shadows and constantly changing patches of light. So this week, our challenge isn't to capture all of it. It is to decide what we can leave out.
Focus Point: Simplification & Detail
Dense forest scenes can easily tempt us into painting object after object: one leaf, another leaf, a branch, a stone, some moss, another branch... But if every small piece of information receives equal attention, the painting can quickly become busy and lose its visual hierarchy.
Instead, try stepping back from the individual objects. Can ten slightly different patches of dark green become one larger mass? Can a cluster of leaves become a simple shape? Can three carefully placed marks suggest foliage more effectively than thirty individually painted leaves?
Simplification does not mean making the landscape empty or less interesting. It means deciding which information matters.
This is also why my earlier post Don’t Paint Every Leaf is especially useful for this challenge. It explores how suggestion, grouping and selective detail can create convincing foliage without describing every individual leaf.
And if you want to take the idea further, Why Copying Photos Doesn’t Work looks at simplification as part of a broader process: beginning with your intention, building the structure of the painting and then choosing the visual language that supports it.
As you work this week, keep one question in mind:
"If I could paint only 20% of the details from the reference photo, which 20% would I keep?"
Photo-by-Photo Analysis
Each of these references presents a different kind of visual complexity, from dense foliage and scattered sunlight to reflections, rocks and moving water. As you look through them, try not to ask “How can I paint all of this?” Instead, look for the large shapes and value masses first, then decide which smaller details are actually needed to communicate the character of the scene.
Photo 1: Waterfall and Emerald Pool
The waterfall immediately gives this photograph a clear focal point. Its bright vertical shape stands against darker rocks and dense vegetation, while the pool opens a quieter area in the foreground. Around it, however, there is an enormous amount of information: moss, foliage, stones, branches and reflections.
Challenge as a photo: The temptation will be to carefully describe all the greenery surrounding the waterfall. Doing so could weaken the simple light shape that makes the waterfall so effective.
Questions:
Which large masses can you identify before looking at individual leaves?
How much information does the vegetation really need for us to read it as a lush forest?
Where would you keep your sharpest or most specific details?
Tips:
Establish the waterfall, pool, rocks and large vegetation masses first.
Connect similar dark greens rather than separating every plant.
Keep more specific texture near the focal area and simplify vegetation farther away.
Let variations in value and temperature suggest foliage before adding individual marks.
Photo 2: Stream Through the Forest
Here the water leads us gently into the forest beneath a canopy of foliage. Sunlight breaks through in irregular patches, creating a beautiful pattern of warm and cool greens.
Challenge as a photo: This may be the most difficult reference to simplify because there is no single dominant object. Almost every part of the photograph contains texture and detail.
Questions:
Could you reduce the scene to three or four major value masses?
Which patches of light are important to the composition?
Does every branch and reflection need to remain?
Tips:
Begin with the broad shape of the stream and the darker vegetation around it.
Group small patches of foliage into connected light and dark masses.
Select only a few light accents rather than reproducing every sunlit leaf.
Use detail strategically to guide the eye deeper into the scene.
Photo 3: Path into the Green
A forest path descends through dense vegetation, accompanied by the strong diagonal of the wooden railing. Beyond it, the background becomes an almost glowing wall of green.
Challenge as a photo: The railing already provides strong structure, but the foliage behind it could easily become a confusing collection of thousands of small shapes.
Questions:
How little information do you need for the background to still feel dense and leafy?
Could the background become one large luminous mass rather than hundreds of leaves?
Where should the railing remain defined, and where could it merge into its surroundings?
Tips:
Use the path and railing as the structural skeleton of the painting.
Simplify the distant foliage much more aggressively than the foreground.
Look for the overall silhouette of vegetation before painting internal texture.
Preserve selected contrasts around the railing and path to guide the viewer through the scene.
Photo 4: Leaves, Rocks and Reflections
This close-up gives us a very different interpretation of the same landscape. There is no distant forest or obvious horizon: just water, rocks, reflections and a small group of fallen leaves.
Challenge as a photo: Here, simplification means deciding which ripples, reflections, rock textures and leaf shapes are essential. Copying every pattern in the water could quickly overwhelm the small focal area.
Questions:
What is the real subject: the leaves, the reflection, the rocks or their relationship?
Which water patterns help communicate movement and which are simply visual noise?
Where would a small amount of precise detail have the greatest effect?
Tips:
Start with a few large abstract shapes rather than naming every object.
Treat the bright green reflection as a mass before adding ripples.
Simplify rock textures and save sharper marks for selected areas.
Consider reducing the number of leaves if a simpler arrangement strengthens your focal point.
This week's photographs remind us that complexity in the reference doesn't require complexity everywhere in the painting. Your goal isn't to prove that you can reproduce every leaf, ripple and patch of moss. Instead, experiment with grouping, removing, merging and suggesting until the scene says what you want it to say.
Choose whichever of the four references interests you most, reinterpret it in your own medium and don't be afraid to simplify much more than feels comfortable at first.
Share your interpretation by Monday, 7 September 2026 at 12:00 CET, using #LandscapeArtClub212 and tagging @landscapeartclub for the chance to be featured.
And whenever you want another landscape for practicing simplification, you can continue exploring different collections in the Reference Library.
Happy Painting!
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