Seasonal Leaves Series, Summer

Seasonal Leaves Series

Summer is the season of lush sun dappled greens mixed with all the color of nature. The Maple leaves are fully mature and providing shade, movement and beauty to the landscape. These leaves are from a Silver Maple, broad with pointed tips, soft green on the top and silver white underneath showing a gentle but crisp color contrast as they turn in the summer breeze.

MEDIUM: Digital Painting | STYLE: Painterly Realism | SIZE: 8 x 10 | ORIENTATION: Landscape | TOOLS: Procreate, 13″ iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, Giclée Fine Art Archival paper and ink | AVAILABILITY: Prints available | CONTACT SHADOWMYST ART

ARTIST’S PROCESS:

Seasonal Leaves – Summer,  part of the Seasonal Leaves Series, was painted in Procreate on a 13″ iPad Pro using the Apple Pencil Pro. Each painting in this set of 4 replicates traditional paintings’ depth and texture through layered digital brushwork. A careful structural drawing was made detailing the shape, veins, and branches for this piece. The next step was color blocking for each leaf on separate layers to create depth through size, deepening colors and crisp edges. The background washes were placed on layers below the leaves’ foundation layers to set the tone for the leaf colors. Above the leaf base color, multiple rounds of detail work and value refinement created the leaf details for each layer. A final set of layers perfecting shadow and light was created using a Procreate soft, round watercolor brush to finalize the summer version of the Seasonal Leaves Series.

CHALLENGE:

Since this series represents 4 completely different environments the background details had to be chosen to match the mood of each particular season while keeping the series connected.  The summer background is consistent with the series characteristic of a soft watercolor wash. A simple palette of clear blue with hints of white and pale green was chosen to represent the clear summer skies with the suggestion of clouds and the reflection of sun off the leaves. To achieve this a watercolor style background multiple layers and Procreate watercolor brushes were used to lay down a main background wash of blue and a soft round Procreate brush was used to dab white and almost transparent greens colors into the blue base allowing the added colors to spread out over the primary color. To add a misty look the final step was a 5% Gaussian blue of the merged layers to completing the summer atmosphere quietly in the background.

SUBJECTS AND THEMES:

Botanical — Maple Leaves — Seasons — Nature — Painterly Realism — Procreate Artwork