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Sketchbook

Autumn in my sketchbook

By 30 November 2022August 5th, 20232 Comments
Silver maple leaf by Tunde Szentes

Autumn has always been one of my favourite seasons, with its magical weather, colours and smells. I enjoy every moment spent in nature this time of the year. I always like to collect leaves, fruits and berries for decoration, but this autumn was a bit different. It was the first time I observed the season through my artistic lens.

It was also the perfect occasion to take Barbara Luel‘s Skillshare class about autumn colours, where she teaches how to draw trees and leaves. It was pure joy to watch here videos, so this was the right time to practice drawing leaves and trees.

I went to the local park, and I randomly selected six trees. I collected their leaves and gave myself time to observe them: their shape, colour variations, leaf veins, size, shadow, etc. With this practice session, I also wanted to experiment with different techniques, like lines, paints, forms, and shadows. I spent over a month drawing and painting leaves and realised that this is something I enjoy a lot.

During this drawing session, I discovered another important thing: there are so many trees in my neighbourhood, but I can name only a few of them. This was an excellent opportunity to expand my botanical knowledge and learn new tree names. Because I couldn’t stop painting leaves and would like to learn more about this topic, I decided to create a visual database with all the leaves I’ve painted and that I’ll paint in the future. It seems not just fun but practical at the same time. So stay tuned. Here are some of my sketchbook pages with autumn leaves:

Thank you, autumn, you were beautiful again.

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