This is the first leaf ghost that has a name: Mr. Floofs. It’s named after one of the stray cats that we’ve been feeding for awhile now. I took the photo of this leaf on my way from the college to my car a few months ago, and when I got home I learned that Mr. Floofs had passed away. So I knew that when I got around to painting this that I wanted it to be in memory of him.
So I started with a photo of him in his younger years:
And I used the Capture app to create a color palette based on the highlights, midtones and dark spots in his fur:
I’ve done this dozens of times for digital work. For example, the hues in this coloring book picture began life in a photo of an iguana. But this is the first time I’ve generated a palette digitally and then tried to duplicate it in actual paint.
Clearly my mixing skills are a little rusty. In addition to not getting the colors just so, I tended to mix either too much or not enough. And it seemed to come out either too thick or too thin.
That notwithstanding, I’m pleased with the result. This is the first time in quite awhile that I’ve worked on something so large I had to dig my large easel out of the basement. Gouache was a lot more comfortable to work with on this scale than it is on sketchbook pages, so I will definitely be back to larger watercolor paper like this or maybe even illustration board in the future.
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