"Sunset on Autumn Leaves"

"Sunset on Autumn Leaves"
12" X 12"

Acrylics and Metal leaf on Canvas.

SOLD

Hi all, I am beside myself with happiness.
starting yesterday, I began to create once more.
I have eyes that see clearly and I am so pleased.
It was very hard to get back into painting & creating Art.
I had moved since I painted last, 

and as well,

I experienced a bit of insecurity about my abilities to pick up,  paint and create again.

So, I dove in.
I love working with Gold/Silver & Copper leaf.
Hey, if your gonna do it, do it in style .

So here we go, a good step by step documentation of this work;

The first thing I did was add Gold and Copper leaf to the top 3/4 of the canvas.

At this stage I was not sure where I was going with this

so I painted the bottom in using white up to and just above the leaf.

I got a good stiff brush and scrubbed the white paint off the leaf in the middle of the canvas and softened that area.

I then scrumbled a mixture of "Goldens Green/Gold Liquid acrylic" and  "Goldens Yellow Oxide liquid Acrylic."

over the white to bring the leaf and the bottom 1/2 of the painting together

Once the paint was dry

 I used a smaller Tree stencil
from "Cutting Edge" and added the tree.

 I added the tree with "Goldens Light Molding Paste "

And sat around for it to dry.

 

(Yes, drying time took longer than creating this whole work)

 I started applying size to the tree & and branches

Once the size was ready, I started adding " Mona Lisa Variegated Blue"

metal leaf to the tree and branches.

 I was at the "Hurry up and Wait" stage LOL

(Took me about 3 hours to do this)

And then I waited for that to dry!

Once dry I brushed off the excess leaf, and fine tuned the leaf application.

My final stage was to add the "Falling leaves"

using Metal dust.

Metal dust is the very  fine bits I collect from the leaf when I brush the excess  off my paintings.

So I got out my trusty old toothbrush and splattered sizing on the canvas in the areas where I wanted the "leaves" to fall.

 That had to dry!

When dry I almost covered the whole painting with the metal dust and lightly tamped it down using the separator pages that are  between the original metal leaf  pages.

My final step was to do the

leaves piled up below the tree and on the ground.

For this I used dust and larger bits from all four types of leaf so as to give the work a nice base.

 

Final painting is at the top of this post.
I am thrilled at how well this work turned out.
Please let me know how you like it.
Until the next time
~~Kathleen
(Who is thrilled to be back)