I’m working on watercolor cards for the Truck Safety Coalition’s annual Gala silent auction. They’ll be getting 3 sets of 5 cards. I’m almost finished with them, but I wanted the last card to be a watercolor of a fall oak leaf. I didn’t find anything online that I liked particularly, though I did find a great tutorial about how to paint an oak leaf.

I watched the tutorial but I wasn’t sure about freehand drawing something similar. Three oak leaves plus acorns. Maybe I could do it but it sure would be easier if I could trace around a real oak leaf. I looked out at the oak tree in my back yard. The limbs were way too high for me to grab a leaf.

I decided to think on it a bit and went to collect the garbage can from the curb since the truck had emptied it and moved on down the road. And there, beside the empty can was a bit of oak tree branch….complete with the top part of an acorn.

Like it was waiting for me. I smiled and gathered it up, rolled the garbage behind me as I pondered how things work out.

After I took the picture of my prize I went back out to the front yard to see what other treasures might have blown off my neighbor’s oak. I found several leaves to show me colors…

…and another bunch of leaves attached to their twig, to show me how the stick part might look.

Oh…and this ginkgo leaf apparently traveled inside on the bottom of my shoe.

So I got to work. I copied a few of the leaves…

…and traced that onto a page of my practice book.

Then I got to painting.

So fun….

Now, if I can just do it again on the actual card.