Leaf Me Alone

I had the urge to paint leaves.  I remember doing this several years ago and got the urge to try it again.

Of course, first I had to clean the paint palette I used with the blue paints the last time I played.  This is why I like acrylics--you can just peel them up and throw them away.  (My former self would have kept these blue "skins" in case I wanted to glue them on a journal page.  The new me just threw them out - trying to simplify my life, you know!)

I gathered an assortment of paints and gathered some things from the yard.  By the time I went out to get the leaves, it was dark, so rather than traipse around with a flashlight in the backyard looking for cool leaves (and risk having the neighbors think I was an intruder), I just got some small leaves at the edge of the driveway.

I made a background with paint and stencils to start off.

Then I brayered a mix of brown and red paint directly on each leaf.

I carefully pressed each leaf onto the background, placed scrap paper over it, and pressed with my fingers.

The images were fairly light, so I experimented with adding color with Inktense watercolor pencils.  I knew the pencils would not cover up the acrylic paints on the background, but it was all for the sake of wanting to see what it would look like.

Fairly quick and fun to try.

That's why I like fall better than winter.  You can't do this with snowflakes.