Ginkgo and Linden Leaves - Watercolor

Last night in watercolor class we painted leaves.  I bet that sounds rather boring but it was actually quite fun.  Leaves are fascinating if you take the time to study them.  Think about it:  based on just the shape you can identify what type of tree or plant they are from.  They come in a wide range of colors and even their veins follow different patterns.  They make great subjects for painting.

This is my interpretation of a leaf from the "little leaf linden" tree in our front yard.  At this time of year in Iowa, the linden leaves are a bright golden yellow.  My leaf is not yellow because I wanted to practice a wet-on-wet technique where you put two different paint colors on the same brush.  However, my leaf does include the dramatic "age spots" that were found on the original leaf.  (The shadow I tried to create was not as successful, so we'll just ignore that.)

My second leaf is a ginkgo, which one of my classmates was kind enough to share with me.  I remember several years ago when ginkgo leaves were all the rage among rubber stampers.  I never bought such a stamp although I love their shape, and now I don't need to because I can paint my own!  I'm especially pleased with how this leaf turned out.  Notice the pattern of the veins compared to the linden leaf.

For my final leaf, I used a different linden leaf and combined the leftover colors on my palette.  Notice how the shape is a little different from the first linden leaf, even though they are both from the same tree.  You can see the serrated edges better on this one, but I should have turned my paper around when I was working on the veins; one half definitely looks more natural than the other.

I hope the autumn weather holds out so I can get over to a local park in search of different leaves to paint.

Thanks for popping in!  Have a great day.

Supplies:
Strathmore 140 lb cold press watercolor paper; Schmincke  Horadam watercolor paints; leaves.