One Leaf a Day Challenge - #9

 Well, yesterday was a bust!  Too many things going on . . . we are in the college application season, after all!  I started this yesterday, but couldn't finish it until this afternoon.  Sometimes I think it is intersting looking at something colorful that is rendered in black and white.  How well do the colors 'translate'?  Can you guess that this maple leaf is mostly dark red, with areas of lighter yellow?  The challenge in drawing this leaf with a pen is that I am trying to express several different things (contour, color and form) using only black dots.  Can you tell the difference between a shady area and a red area?  It is not that easy!  Still, it makes a nice drawing, don't you think?

One Leaf a Day Challenge - #8

Well I am barely making it under the wire here with this one.  Let's just say it took WAY longer than I thought.  Sometimes I get going in the wrong direction with a painting and then I have to backtrack and try again.  Or sometimes I just can't get my brushes to cooperate.  Or the paper is too dry or too wet.  I know I have a nice image and I know I can do it; I just have to keep going and pray that the tide will turn eventually and a beautiful thing will start to emerge.  In this case, I was using too much Indian Red, which was browning out the wonderful colors.  But I think I salvaged it.  What do you think?

One Leaf a Day Challenge - #7

Woa! This is going to take a little more time!  And a bad photo to boot.  Hang in there with me . . . this is going to be gorgeous.  Tomorrow.

One Leaf a Day Challenge - #6

So is there anything more graceful in nature than the leaf of a Japanese maple??  This is my favorite tree in the fall.  (Well, I'd have to say it might be my favorite anytime of the year.)  The colors that burst out of this tree like a flaming sunset over the Pacific are truly breathtaking.  From sun-kissed orange to deepest burgundy and everything in between.  Even in an unexceptional year, as far as color goes, this tree takes the blue ribbon.  What really sets this tree apart, though, are the shapes of the leaves.  They each have the requisite five lobes of a generic maple leaf , but the pointy fronds and curly-ques and delicate tendrils that spring from each lobe makes each leaf unique.  Standing next to this tree, trying to pick a sample for my post, I was overwhelmed with the variety.  So today I'm sharing a line drawing I did of one leaf, and perhaps tomorrow I'll chose another one to paint.  That way, you can appreciate the graceful shape and the vibrant colors of this magnificent fall specimen.

One Leaf a Day Challenge - #5

This is a redbud leaf.  It seems sort of funny to me that the redbud leaves in fall are not red, or pink, or any other reddish shade.  Of course, the tree is named for its gorgeous mauve blossoms which pop out all over the tree in spring.  This variety is called "Woodland Pansy" and is identifiable by its leaves which start out scarlet, turn maroon as they mature, then turn green as spring gives way to summer.  The Woodland Pansy redbud is a highly fashionable tree, for sure, changing her 'look' with each season!

One Leaf a Day Challenge - #4

Is this a maple leaf?  I don't even know!  I just picked it up off the ground outside the gym today.  Isn't it beautiful?  As you can see, this is only a photograph.  Where's the painting?  Sigh... I had a bit of a rough afternoon and this lovely leaf is still sitting on the drawing table waiting its turn patiently.  Sadly, our dog has taken a turn for the worse and poor ol' gal, I think she might be nearing her end.  This blog is about botanical art and not pets, though, so I won't get into the nitty gritty.  Just know I would be painting if I could, but now I need to spend time with my dear, sweet companion. 

One Leaf a Day Challenge - #3

When I took Henry to see the doctor this morning, I almost drove off the road when we rounded a bend and saw the row of ginkgo trees flanking the parking lot.  Every tree was at its peak of yellow perfection today.  That mass of solid lemon yellow, with flaming orange and red maple trees in the background, and the purple Ragged Mountains in the distance . . . Man, it's a wonder anyone gets any work done in the building, with that picture postcard view out the windows!

I have to be honest, I never really liked ginkgo trees until I began to study botanical painting.  This stems from my youth, when our next door neighbor planted several ginkgo trees near the lot line and the female trees dropped their sticky (and extremely stinky!) seed pods in our tiny city garden.  My mom, who is otherwise a law-abiding citizen, got so fed up with cleaning up the mess she climbed the fence in the dark of night and gave the trees a drink of gasoline, precipitating their demise.  Our neighbor, who knew nothing about city gardening, replaced his mysteriously dead ginkgo trees with a small stand of bamboo, which quickly shot up 30 feet and became a large stand, shading our garden entirely and thus proving the adage, crime doesn't pay.

So it wasn't until I studied plant morphology that I gained an appreciation for this often maligned tree.  Yes, it is messy, but did you know it is one of the best-known examples of a living fossil?  It has not evolved appreciably since the Pliocene era,  with fossils recognisably related to modern ginkgo dating back even further,  270 million years. This is one ancient tree!  It's leaf structure is unique among seed plants in that the veins fan out individually from the base into the leaf blade, sometimes splitting but never joining with neighboring veins to form a network. This makes it fun to paint! 

I picked this random leaf off the ground, and at the time it was almost a solid, uniform yellow.  I wasn't sure if it would make an interesting painting.  But like a banana peel, it immediately began to wither and brown, so I had to drop all activity when I got home this morning (oh darn) and sit down to paint, before it lost all its lovely yellow color.  It was a challenge to paint because it was turning color before my eyes.  After a couple of hours, I had to finally declare victory and stop recording the changing hues.  Yellow is very tricky to work with, by the way, since it can quickly and easily look muddy and overworked.  It isn't one of those colors you can layer endlessly with shades and gradations.  I think I caught myself just in the nick of time.  Enjoy!

One Leaf a Day Challenge - #2

Euonymous.  The ubiquitous landscaping shrub everyone around here seems to have in their garden.  When we moved here, I knew next to nothing about gardening, and had the hardest time remembering the names of everything as people would walk around our property telling us what was growing here.  But for some reason, 'Euonymous' stuck.  Whenever someone would ask me what some shrub was, I'd more often than not say, "I'm not totally sure, but I think its Euonymous," and sound so knowledgeable.  It became a sort of joke.  Then I learned the common name, 'Burning Bush,' which didn't stick with me until our first fall, when our hedge of Euonymous seemed to literally catch fire.  The upper leaves turn first, to a burning hot pinkish red.  Finally the whole hedge becomes one huge mass of solid flaming color.  It is increadible!  We're about half way there as of today:

One Leaf a Day Challenge -- #1

Fall has been happening for weeks now but I am finally getting around to acknowledging the fact.  I want to celebrate the fabulous colors of the season by drawing or painting one leaf a day for the next ten days! As far as leaf-peeping goes, some years are more colorful than others and this year we are having a more muted show.  I love it just the same.  All those yummy, earthy tones all mixed together in subtle ways.  It reminds me of our years in Japan, where fall color is refined and understated, much like her people.

We live in a forest here in Charlottesville, so this time of year is especially beautiful as each deciduous tree changes color day by day.  Just outside our kitchen window is a stand of dogwood trees.  They are among the first trees to turn.  Never brilliant, never showy, but always a gorgeously rich shade of burgundy.  I never knew this until I started paying close attention, but the leaves that turn first are the ones most exposed to sunlight.  This makes sense -- they'd be the first to have their summer pigment supply used up as they catch the last rays of sunshine.  Or something to that effect.  I sort of forget my biology.  With the dogwood, the shaded leaves get "suntan lines" from the leaves above them.  Wherever they remain shaded, the leaf is perfectly green, and where they see a bit of sun they "tan", beginning their color transformation.   So you get leaves like the one above, with areas of intense green and darker reds, all on the same leaf.  Eventually, however, all of the leaves fade to a uniform burgundy, before drying up entirely and dropping to the ground.

I drew this with colored pencils on double-frosted mylar.  The smooth surface of the mylar is wonderful to draw on -- it accepts layers of color very nicely and the pencil just slides right along.  But the best thing is, you can erase it if you make a mistake!  Colored pencil on paper doesn't behave nearly as well.  Enjoy!