French Gray? More leaves

leave with shading

I did another leaf this morning and really enjoyed blending colors to try to match nature's wild abandon. If you saw the piles of leaves in my driveway, each one unique and begging to be drawn, you would understand my awe.

My leaf, however, lacked the depth of the "real thing." So I tried covering it with French Gray, ... whatever that is, not a warm and not a cool, and that didn't do it. Next I added some warm gray ... better, but not right yet.

shaded leaf plus grays, red and green sandwich

Finally I went over the whole leaf with 2 shades of red and a green in between. That complementary sandwich seemed to tone it down for my eye, although my camera still sees differences. I am really enjoying this assignment and have lots of leaves flattening out in a book for later.

Did a LOT of searching on the internet, and apparently French Gray has purple undertones. I am comparing it to the BV 23 grayish lavender copic marker that was one of my first three copics, and has always been a favorite of mine.

Hmmm. wonder what would happen if I tried to color the same leaf using copics.