Golden Afternoon

In September my husband and I went up north to see the colors.  The trees were about 50% in color.  Two weeks later the wind and rains ravaged the leaves and the season was done.

I am taking an imaginary visit class of autumn and when I saw the picture of golden leaves overhead I knew I had to sketch it.

The sketch is done on Arches Aquarelle 140 pound cold press watercolor paper cut to 7-1/2" x 7" with my current watercolor pallet.

Autumn Reds

I had fun doing these sketches.  I have seen this type of mushroom before in the woods, beautiful but deadly.  I like to pick rose hips for herbal teas and they are so pretty and healthy.  One of my favorite trees is the Hawthorne Tree.   I love the red fruits that the birds and animals eat and the 2" thrones on its branches.  Sketched with my Pigma micron pen in black and painted with my current watercolor pallet on Arches Aquarelle 140 pound cold press paper.

Horse Chestnuts

I use to collect the nuts from horse chestnut trees when I was young.  I loved their smooth skin with the wood grain lines on them.  Seeing them hanging in their pod I just had to sketch them.  This is on 7-1/2" x 7" Arches Aquarell 140 pound cold press watercolor paper using my current pallet of watercolors.

Fall Reds

Working on getting different shades of reds with my pallet.  I found some of the color mixes interesting. Perylene Green made some interesting  purples and Azo Green made some nice orange-reds.  This has been fun, but now I need to sketch some fall scenes.

Another Fall Color Swatch-Rust

 Working on color swatches again for fall colors.  For my base colors I used Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Quin. Burnt Orange, Indian Red, Raw Sienna and Transparent Pyrrol Orange.  Dropping other colors in and at the end of the strip rubbing the color on top to see what the results would. be.  I think I have some interesting colors here to use in my fall sketches.

Capturing Fall Colors

I am making several fall sketches for the virtual class I am taking with Laure Ferlita virtual visit to autumn.

It was fun working with the various colors on my pallet to see how they would interact with each other. Trying to capture the colors of leaves during fall can be a challenge.

Fall

I love the fall.  The cool crisp air, trees changing into beautiful colors and the smells.  The air seems more alive in fall, it is hard to explain that after the heat of summer the air changes and seems to have more energy.  The colors break up all the greens of summer and notifies me that summer is over.  I like the play of the reds, oranges and yellows against the blue sky.  The smell of burning leaves.  They remind me of childhood when we use to burn the leaves at the curb.  I sketched this leaf on Arches Aquarel 140 pound paper with pencil and watercolor paint.