Autumn Leaves

I have been collecting fall leaf photos for a long time knowing that some day I would paint a series of autumn leaves.  This was the first attempt for red maples leaves.  I wanted the leaves to be very vibrant so I used Winsor Red for the brightest colors.  Then I wanted to vary the colors from bright red to gold, to mixtures of red, gold and blue.

I chose Winsor Blue, Red shade for the blue and Winsor Yellow for the yellow/gold tones.  I painted all the red leaves first varying them with lighter shades, and mixtures of red and blue, or red and yellow.  Then I decided which leaves should be brighter and layered over them 2 or three times with the Winsor red. Some of the bottom leaves where painted with varying mixtures of red and yellow  after wetting the leave shapes.  The colors ran together a bit, which I liked.   

The background was painted in without masking.  First I painted the top and middle shapes, then the bottom.  I painted over some of the leaves on the bottom and the top.

This was my first try with leaves and I was pleased that it became more of an abstract painting than a realist one.