Leaf Negative Space Drawing

Artist Statement:

To create my piece Fall from Here I first traced leaves onto the paper using a B pencil. Next I sketched in the ‘vein’ pattern in the negative space of the leaves. Then, using a brown .01 width Micron I traced the ‘vein’ pattern, and using a .05 blue Micron I traced the edges of the leaves. The next step was colored pencil, this step took the longest and it was were I was the most indecisive. I was scared of ‘ruining’ the piece, by which I mean using colors that didn’t fit with the pallette, or creating something monotonous by not incorporating enough colors. I first began with the leaves, deciding to really burnish the pencils to create a shine, and a waxy texture. Once finished with the leaves, I started in on the oceans (which were actually inside the shapes created by the original leaves I had traced) I know, it's hard to explain. At first I intended to have one leaf spilling into the other, a have a wave created by that, once I had finished, I decided it didn’t fit with the tone of the rest of the piece, so I turned the wave into a string of islands, with a caldera in deep blue in the center.

As a result of the detail within the leaf design, your eye, being lazy, is attracted to the more open space, which is the expanses of ‘ocean’ not filled with islands. In an attempt to create texture within those islands I tried to use different greens, and used a white paint marker to create the appearance of movement of waves around the islands. When it came to the leaves I wanted to use colors that would contrast with the blues and greens of the ocean scenes, so I used an orangey red as well as yellow. I tried to also unify the leaves by using the same color to blend each piece together, which didn’t really work, but added some texture to the red leaf.

This piece really has no deeper meaning to me, more than that I tried to create a visually appealing artwork, that I myself was proud of. While I was working on this project, my family and I visited Baxter State Park, where I collected the leaves that inspired the ones in the artwork. To me, this artwork is a little bit of that trip, because I spent the car rides in either direction working on it. I only struggled with indecision, I didn’t know what to do with the ‘oceans’ at the beginning, so I started with the leaves and had an idea for the ‘oceans’ by the time I had finished. Overall, I really am happy with how this project turned out, it has vibrant colors (whereas the Pelican did not) and clear lines made with pen (versus pencil, as in Pure Imagination).