I love the lush, vivid colors of autumn - variegated leaves strewn about the landscape, golds, crimsons, and fiery orange contrasting against the blue sky.

But one leaf - an oak leaf - that I carried around in my possession year after year, never changed color. It remained a dark, forest green and for some reason, it never dulled or became brittle. For some time this leaf was my secret little muse and I did several drawings of it.

My love of pavement scenes can be seen here and I gathered a few leaves, dropped them onto my work table, and sketched them where they lay, with my model leaf showing off in the foreground.

This piece was done using Guitar Oil Pastels on 140# Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper. It is a mere fraction of the original size of 40 x 40". It is also the very first painting I ever did with the "pavement" them in mind.