Painting the leaves

I can't resist these leaves again! The little maple next door has turned beautifully, so I had to go and take some to paint.

Okay Sue! First I laid the leaves on my watercolor paper until I was happy with the composition and then traced the outline of them. Yes, traced them! It's okay to do that this time.

Then I put the leaf that I was going to paint first on a white paper next to my watercolor paper, so I was able to see the colors closely and mixed my paints on my palette to be ready.

With a nicely loaded brush, I wet the inside of the leaf with a coat of water. If you have a good watercolor paper, it will soak in nicely and stay wet for a while to give you a chance to paint with nice painterly washes.

Here you can see the shiny surface of the wet leaf.

While it is wet, begin dropping in your colors. Let them run.

Dab in some little darks where you see them and let the colors run together.

Then, with a chisel end brush, draw in the vein lines. The paint will settle there and give the vein some importance. You can also drop a little on to help.

Then go on to your second leaf.

And keep going until all your leaves are painted.

Oh goody, we are done posing.

I decided to add some blue sky so they are not just floating in nothing. I remember looking up into the trees in Michigan and seeing that bright blue sky behind the beautiful red maples. Now, wasn't that fun?