Autumnal Leaf Line Drawing

It is funny, I actually really like this image, but I am not crazy about the scan here. It looks a little better at full resolution.

For a couple days I had been playing with this page. I had prepped it with a wash of acrylic paint, but the bright color resulted in more brush texture than I initially wanted. Also the marker on the previous page seems not to have dried completely in the darkest areas before I closed it.

Rather than take this as something to fix, I decided to work with it. So the line drawings here were an attempt to go with the grain of the brush strokes, or the speckles of marker. I am actually really happy with the result. I thought about adding some more touches of color, but ultimately I think it will take away from the clean lines which I like so much.

This was a fun project because it really leant itself to being picked up and put down. The painting was done over a week ago, with no other steps that day. Later I would sketch a leaf at a time in pencil, then ink it with my favorite pen (a pigma micron 02 archival pen) when I had time. Erasing the pencil later left a simple, clean look that defied the small amount of time I can squeeze in to draw with sometimes.