Red Leaves (Oil Bar Painting as of October 7, 2013)

Red Leaves (Oil Bar Painting as of October 7, 2013), a photo by randubnick on Flickr.

I finally got a chance to get back to this painting today, oil bars on a small (8 x 10 inch) canvas. I am using one of my photos as a reference (posted here September 25). Today my goal was to turn the leaves red. To begin, though, I added green to the veins in the leaves so I would be able to see them. Then I started painting with alizarin crimson. For now, I am not worrying about varying the color, just trying to figure out where things are. Once I had the red down, it was still hard to see the veins in the leaves, so I mixed in some white and used some dark pink, and the contrast started to work. Then I went back and added more of the crimson to the veins, and it began to work. That was all I had time to do today. I was happy to see that adding the red made the yellow leaves fade into the background, as I had hoped. To be continued. . . .