Four Fall Leaves

This is for Rookie Painter, Oct 2010 challenge. It's oil on 10x10 canvas board.

In the original reference photo, the background was white, and the leaves were farther apart. (ref photo) I was debating what to do with the background, whether to keep it white, to make it complementary (blue), or analogous. I wanted the simple leaves to reflect the rich color of fall, like brown, orange, red. So I decided the painting would go with the analogous color scheme.

The background underpainting is an acrylic mixture of mars black, burnt umber, and yellow orchre. Big brush strokes were used to make the background with a wood impression. Cadmium yellow is the main color for the leaves, mixed in with alizarin, madder, ultramarine violet, sap green, raw umber, burnt sienna, yellow orchre and some white. The shadows needed to be darker than the already dark background. So I used some ultramarine blue, ultramarine violet, and black.