Every so often I come across something that strikes me and compels me to create a piece of art from it. It might be a scene, or a picture, or just an idea that I then go looking for reference photos so I can make it. Such was the case with the Leaf.
I took the reference picture last fall. I was out on my balcony, watering plants, when this one leaf on my avocado tree caught my attention. It struck me because of its shape and color, and in the particular sunlight, its veins. So, I took a picture with my phone. I could digress about how cool it is to have such a high-powered digital camera in my pocket, but I’ll leave it at that. It is quite convenient.
Not long after taking the photo, I started my first attempt at creating the art piece that I was hoping to make from the Leaf photo. I got a little off track with it and went more down the path of creating a realistic setting. Which was irrelevant to what I wanted to create. It had nothing to do with what I saw that made me want to create that piece of art.
Since, it didn’t work out as I had intended in pastel, I made a few attempts in digital. One of which is passable even in its incompleteness. Still not satisfied, I put it aside. But it wouldn’t leave me be. It kept nagging me to create it, to have it tell the story I saw. So, I tried again.
A few weeks ago, I finished a new pastel painting of the Leaf, and now it tells, much better, the story I saw. What I saw, and see, in the Leaf is a lung. Environmentalists with tell you that the Amazon Rainforest are the lungs of the planet. And I understand that on a global scale. But, particularly because of the shape, and the veins, this Leaf made it very apparent that the leaves of the trees, and plants, are the lungs of the planet. How can they not be when the structure of both look so similar. I would still like to create the Leaf digitally, but for now, with the pastel painting created, it has allowed me some time to rest. And figure out how best to tell its story in digital.