Hello! Not much of an update today, but yay, I finally finished my first leaf painting yesterday. Well, a leaf painting that I finished and still liked the following morning, lol. Painting leaves is hard. And I’m still new at this. It took all of yesterday afternoon to finish the right side. It’s been sitting on my table far too long.
I wanted to finish it because I plan to paint tiny blue flowers from the backyard next. Mixing colors is so tedious for me, but I’m feeling like I’m up for the challenge. With the leaf, I didn’t use yellow ochre or brown. I mixed chromium orange, lemon yellow, and delft blue to get that brown. Looking at both leaves, I didn’t quite get the right kind of brown the real one had. It’s a warmer brown in real life. Maybe I should have mixed a bit of red in it. But, ah, I already started with that tone, and just went along with it. Thinking of this as a study, hehe.
Because!
Well. I finally did finish the painting, and took pictures to document this moment. Then I plopped the dried leaf on my paper for some shots, when I realized it looked so beautiful at a different angle, bathed in this soft light from the side window.
The moment I saw it this way from my camera, I started kicking myself.
Why didn’t I paint it this way?!
Well, little leafy, it looks like you’re going to be living much longer on my desk. And even longer in my heart, it seems. You will always be the embodiment of poetry, a reminder to express the ordinary in extraordinary ways.
So now, I have two things I want to paint. It finally feels like my botanical painting journey has begun.
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