I knew I wanted to incorporate the different autumn foliage I see on my daily dogs walks, in my wreath so I chose the following:

- Mini pumpkins

- Acorns

- Acorn Leaves 

- Black Eyed Susans

- Filler leaves and branches

 

Refined sketch

Once I had my different elements sketched out, the fun part was deciding which elements would overlap to add visual interest. It was trial and error to begin with and but after a while I understood which combinations looked best! I knew I was going to struggle with the text the most as my handwriting skills need some work.

Warm background colour

I’ve used textures quite a lot before but I’m quite slap dash with their use, in this class, I was a lot more considered, thinking which brush would best resemble the natural texture of the foliage. I felt that the brush selection Silvia provided were incredible and varied, and they really bring your designs to life!

Once all the textures were added to the individual elements (3 or four texture layers per element!) I added one final grain texture over the top and set the opacity layer to colour burn. This gave an extra level of texture to the overall piece and really brought out the deep, rich autumn colours.

 

 

Cool background colour

Here I have experimented with a cooler tone background - I can’t decide which one I like more!

 

Close ups of some of my favourite textures and composition