4. Micro Leaf Project

Describe: In this piece, my subject is a old window frame with a micro leaf in each pane. I decided to sketch out the piece first in light pencil, before going into the more intricate details of the actual leaves. Because I wanted to keep with an ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ feel to the match the leaves, I decided to use mainly colored pencils in my final draft; then outlining it with some faint ink. When coming up with ideas for this project, I suddenly had a faint memory blast where stained glass windows came to mind. Deciding this would be my main feature, I then decided to fill each of the window panes with a different autumn leaf; keeping with the ‘micro leaf’ idea. Color of course played a large part in this piece, but I would also say shape and value did to. Copying and trying to get right each color of the leaves was kinda hard, as blending the colored pencils wasn't as easy as I thought. And I believe both shape and value can be seen in the structure and coloring of the frame; which I'm pretty proud of. A faint sense of unity can be felt about this piece, just because of the way that the leaves are subjected, along with the formation of the frame.

Analyze: Analyzing this piece, you can pick up on a few of the composition rules and techniques. Firstly, I feel as though framing is the most upfront and easiest to spot. The window frame itself acts as the frame technique, enclosing each of the different micro leaves. Grouping is also a technique I can spot, as I feel as though the whole subject of this artwork is a ‘group’. Though the window frame enclosing them, the leaves themselves are still grouped together; just not touching or connecting to one another. Just looking at this piece now, I'm happy that I used color pencils; but during my first stages of ideas, this wasn't the case. Originally I was only going to colored pencils for the frame, and then do water colors for the leaves. In the end I decided to go against this because Id already used water colors so many times before; and I was actually liking how the colored pencil was coming out.

Evaluate: My artwork usually doesn't have any meaning behind it; usually just an idea that pops into my head and I just go with it, the same can be said for this piece. As I mentioned above before, I instantly liked the idea of including a old window frame in my piece, and just grew from that idea. Going to church as a child, I can remember seeing the huge stained glass windows with all the different colors of glass in them; each one telling a different story. Though I didn't want to make these leaves ‘glass cut’, I was heavily inspired by church windows; just instead of using geometric shapes to make the leaves, I went with the realistic leaf designs. Overall I like how this piece came out; the colored pencils were a new material to work with, but I did enjoy it. The only thing I might change about this piece is maybe adding more ink to different places to really make it pop.