Leaf painting - Tribute to spring

Leaf,
Acrylic on canvas,
15 X 30 cm

CREATIVE PROCESS:

My intention for this painting was to create hyper realistic, fresh and vibrant composition. I wanted to paint the leaf shined with light from the underneath.

The colors of my choice are acrylics.

As first layer, I used warm yellow mixed with a little bit of white.
After few minutes dry on my radiator, I am continuing with lightly sketching the leaf veins, and adding the green colors.
The dark green is placed on the corners and around the veins, and light shades are spreading from the center, meeting the darker shades and mixing into almost fluorescent, vivid greens.

While painting the leaf veins, I was aiming for almost gold like color. On the bottom center of the painting I placed a touch of reddish orange. This way, all the greens are popping out even more.

To emphasize the desired quality, I like to place it's complement next to it. This is a trick I use in painting, drawing and photography as well.
The parts that are opposite to one another are the first ones to be noticed - if I wish the green to appear greener, I am putting against something that is definitely Not green. That would be it's complement color, red.

Complementary contrast is very intense, so I decided to tone it down by turning the red to orange.

You can check out my other artworks here: @petraa ,
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Photographs in the post are taken by me with Nikon D5600, lens Nikkor,18-55mm,1:3.5-56G.

I appreciate your spending time on this post!
Have a wonderful day :)