Painting leaves in acrylics. Contemporary style.

I have done 2 paintings of leaves in a bold contemporary style.  The paintings are on canvas and are painted in acrylic.

Here are the finished paintings, followed by a step by step account of how they were painted.

I did the top painting first. This is on a very large canvas. This one was painted for myself, and hangs on our dining room wall. The second one was, obviously, inspired by the first one, and is for sale.

So here goes....Firstly the top painting. I randomly painted some lines of paint on a canvas. Just to get a feel of the colours I wanted to use. 

  Next I  painted in some leaf shapes. As you can see there is no evidence left of my initial background. I decided I wanted wider bands of colour behind the leaves. I also wanted to place background colours so they contrasted with the leaves above them.  

The leaf shapes were kept simple. I just painted them straight on, making it up as I went along. I tried to get them balanced and facing in different directions, so it did not look too flat.

My next stage was to add a bit of structure to the leaves. I put some white lines on to show the veins of the leaves.  I started to add additional areas of colour over the whole painting, using colours just a bit lighter or darker than the existing colours.  I wanted to break up the surface and add some "movement" to the work.

  I then decided to abandon the vein lines on the leaves as I thought they were too dominant.  However, the leaves are subdivided like that, but in a more subtle way. 

I have softened and blurred the edges of the background colours, so they blend in to each other.  I added a bit of extra white to many areas.

I am working on the final colours, I decided to reintroduce more yellow, as it seemed to have lost its impact.  I painted the sides in a terracotta colour. 

 The final painting.

Having completed my first painting, I started working on another, This time I wanted a textured background. I created this with crumpled tissue paper. This is applied by mixing it with PVA glue and a little gesso, It dries to a very firm and strong surface. it takes quite q few hours to dry though!!  I then painted the whole surface with  red paint.

My next stage was to start planning some leaf shapes.  This is a much smaller canvas than my first one, so it does not take so long to do!!

Following on ....adjusting the leaf colours and adding some contrasting background bands of colour.

I do not have any more in between stages photographed, so here is the final painting.  I have added many layers of additional paint, indicating the structure of the leaves, and using contrasting areas of colour on both the background and the leaves.

  This one is for sale. It will be on my Artfinder page, or you can contact me directly.