How I Painted This........

How I painted this….
Infinity of Nature, an oil painting of leaves on a 100x100cm Canvas.
Here is the story of how I painted this picture, it is my largest painting to date, and sums up well my views of the world, 

In the beginning I grew up on a small farm in Essex, England, where we kept many animals and were surrounded by beautiful countryside, this I found constantly inspiring and I developed my love of the natural world, and my desire to protect it. I painted whenever I got the chance, around many obstacles and much discouragement, as was encouraged to focus on a proper career! Chocolate kept me going! In 2014 I won the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award with Do You? My second oil painting of leaves.  This  picture was the first to sum up my core values, the need to cherish our Earth at all times. Small changes, when done by many people can make a huge impact. 

My leaf paintings highlight the balance in nature. Infinity of Nature is my largest leaf painting to date, it is 100x100cm painted in Oil on Linen. I started with a walk around my local suburb, collecting only fallen leaves that caught my eye, I brought them home and scattered them on a board a bit bigger than the size I want to paint, for this one I placed the bright leaves in the shape of the infinity symbol, on a background of more muted coloured leaves, to reflect on how mother nature, manages to reduce the leaves to compost, recycling and reusing their nutrients, in and ongoing cycle. Then I photographed it, as I cannot paint fast enough from life, to capture it before they alter, because even though they have fallen they are still changing with time.

Line drawing on Root 5 Grid

Tonal Plan

Once I have photos of my leaf composition, I used a root 5 grid for maximum energy inside a square for its stillness,  I adjusted the lay of the leaves to the grid to give the painting energy and flow. Once I had a suitable line drawing, I made a tonal plan to make the image read how I wanted it, lastly colour is considered. Once I had a complete plan, supported throughout by dark chocolate raisins from the local 'Source bulk foods', I transferred the line on to the canvas, then blocked in the main colours in their correct tonal levels, except the yellows, for these I used glazes to get the depth and tone I needed. The next 4 - 5 layers built up a depth of colour and detail in each leaf.

Infinity of Nature captures my cares about the health of the planet, and cherishing its ecosystems, I do what I can to reduce my impact and recycle my waste. My paintings are each designed to reflect the worlds beauty at its best and to convey this message.
My vision going forward is to refine my work further, improve my reach and increase my support of entities that protect of our fragile Earth (and did I mention eat chocolate!)

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