Hello everyone! Today I am going to share how I painted an artwork of rainbow fall leaves. I love the vibes of the fall season where we get to see different colours and hues in leaves and trees. Hence, I wanted to paint some of them.
First of all, I did a simple outline of the leaves using a HB pencil. I used a hard pencil because it doesn't smudge much upon contact with water.
I painted the first colour in blue which goes into the background area. I used the wet on wet technique where I painted water all over the background first then added little dabs of the blue paint. The colour gets lighter as it dries.
So I added a few more layers of the sky blue in the background and mixed in some green as well as some yellow for a smoky effect. I kept the original blue around the leaves so it creates more definition to the leaves. So I just realized it looks more like the sea blue overall rather than sky blue but that's alright for me because I didn't have a precise idea of the painting.
I started painting the first leaf. The reason why I started from the right is because that's where the red leaf is and I was tired of looking at the blue hues for so long and wanted to see some contrasting colours so I jumped into the fiery red.
Then, I painted a few other leaves in the meantime of waiting for the previous ones to dry. That way I don't lose focus.
Phew, done painting all the leaves. But, not quite. They look dull because I have not built the colours up yet. I will add more layers of colours after they dry.
I have painted different shades of green on the leaves on the left side, ranging from dark, medium and warm with partial brown shade.
While waiting for the greens to dry, I moved back to the orange and reddish leaves. The right most is a purplish leaf. I painted colours with less water so the colours appear more vibrant since it is the final layer. I also drew some of the veins on the leaves with the same watercolour paint but only using the furthest tip of the brush.
I used a lot of yellow to make the green leaf in the middle stand out. I added more purple to the last leaf to make it darker and gave some pink highlights to it.
I also painted the golden yellow leaf at this stage and lightly painted the veins.
This is my workspace. It may seem a little messy as I leave all the containers open while painting but that is for convenience.
I tried painting the green leaves again but it was creating the cauliflower effect as the paper was too damp and not dry enough to take more water. I ended up lifting some paint unintentionally (oops).
Finally after allocating plenty of time, the leaves were dry enough and I managed to add more layers of green colour paint and now I feel satisfied with the colour payout.
I have done adding the veins on every leaf and this is the final outcome. For final touches, I also painted the background again with another layer of blue and green mix along with some subtle tints of yellow.
This was surely a painting I enjoyed making because it was relaxing and something related to nature. It is also a metaphor on how everything in life constantly recycles just like how leaves change colours throughout the seasons and as time flows. I hope that you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed painting this.
Thank you for dropping by and I wish you have a great day ahead :)
