Bright November Leaves (Closeup)

Bright November Leaves (Closeup), a photo by randubnick on Flickr.

I am getting ready to start a little series of paintings; I am planning to paint close-in views of branches at different times of the year (covered with leaves, flowers, berries, and snow). These are going to be small paintings (8 x 10 inches). Last night I selected one of my photos that I plan to work from, a picture of red leaves in November, originally posted here on Nov. 20, 2011. Yesterday I posterized and cropped it to get a rectangular format. (See yesterday's post.) But I want the leaves and branches on the canvas to look as close to full size as possible, so this morning I realized that I need to modify the crop. So today I did another crop so that the leaves will look just about full size at 8 x 10 inches. Here it is, and I plan to use this photo as a reference when I start painting.