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Writer's pictureDianne Sutherland

Leaf Challenge: November 2024

Every now and then I like to practice drawing and painting leaves. For me it's important to revisit certain aspects of plants, and leaves can definitely prove to be the Achilles heel of a painting if I'm not prepared, so, it's never wasted time to focus on leaves.


With this in mind, and for the whole month of November, I'm going to be painting a leaf every other day and posting to my Instagram account using the hashtag 'paintaleafchallenge2024' Maybe you'd like to join in by using the hashtag?



Many years ago I decided to spend a concentrated period of time practicing leaves and I continue to do so from time to time, of course they are still not perfect by any means! but the only way to improve with anything is by hard work, which improves observation, understanding and technique, I always keep in mind that I can always do better if I try harder.


In the very early days of my painting career, a lot of the issues with leaves were to do with lighting and I discovered that it's often about what you leave our as well as what you put down. I found some information misleading or just not suited to my approach. I don't paint with big washes, or lift paint because that's a recipe for disaster in my hands, and I found that there is no linear approach to painting, with every subject being different. But also every artist is different, therefore, different approaches work for different people.


My approach is often a 'patchwork' of colour when painting leaves, which you'll no doubt see, I look for underlying colour and light first and worry less about the overall basic hue, that's important too of course but it's not where it begins.

Maybe you are familiar with the green matching problem? when you use the colours someone else used to paint the same leaf but it just doesn't work out, it's a bit like baking a cake, you can have the exact same ingredients but the outcome is completely different because there are many more variables than a green mix. In my case if I don't get the light and underlying colour right first, it's already gone wrong ....There are no rules though, so do what works for you.


I won't be spending long on each leaf and certainly don't expect perfection, that just holds everything up because it's always out of reach. I will never have as much time as I would like for such tasks and that's not going to change, but this still a very worthwhile exercise - to try different leaves or to revisit those problematic ones and also I wan't to find some new candidates for painting on vellum, for me this is just a problem solving and exploration exercise.


If you want to join in, remember, there are no rules, spend as long as you like and most important, don't be disheartened if something isnt quite working out .....some leaves are easier than others, some painting days are better than others. That's just life....some things go well and other thing's don't ....but if you keep trying there's always got to be more chance of succeeding.


Here's the the start of the leaf challenge - it's that 'patchwork' start that I mentioned earlier. A heart shaped Cercis leaf is first up, there lots of overlaying of colours and much more to come to get to the red, check Instagram tomorrow for more on colours, and how I approached this leaf. I really would like to paint this one on vellum but that takes considerably more time and concentration....this can be my preparation.




The beginning looks like chaos....let's hope for order later. (Me)









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