30-Day Painting Challenge: Leaf Through Sunlight

Today is day two of the paining challenge. This time I was instructed to draw a leaf with sunlight behind it. I found a couple of pictures on the internet and tried to do it on my own. I thought of ways to paint sunlight. But I found it particularly difficult. How can one paint light?

I thought about it for a few minutes and came to the decision of the color yellow. The sun is often symbolized with a yellow ball of light or a yellow sun emoji with a smiley face. So for the background I painted it yellow to represent sunlight.

The leaves were easier. I made then a nice ombré from light to dark. I loved my leaves before I made the mistake of putting black/brown lines to represent the veins. It looks fake. The painting before was a nice comfortable leaf. And now I just don’t like it.

I did finish the painting and from the mistakes I made I learned a couple of things. For one, use maybe a light pencil or gray for the lines in the leaves and that sunlight can’t be captured but felt.