Leaf 7- Sky Flower Vine
The sky flower is one of my favorite vines. I have seen it many times on my Artistic Adventure Tours to Costa Rica and it has been about 18 years since I painted it. I was so thrilled to find it here in Florida.This year I am going to paint it again. In the winter it dies back so I will have to wait until next summer/fall to paint it here in Gainesville. In preparation for the painting I needed to capture the dark, almost black green color. Today I reached for Perleyne Green from Daniel Smith. This color is awesome as it is very dark and goes on the paper beautifully when I apply it thick with a lot of water. I also used Carbazole purple in the shadow to make the leaf go darker. This will work well when I paint the flower…..it is a heavenly purpley blue.
I am having a blast doing these leaves. It is a lot of fun and I thank so many of you that have commented and e-mailed me about this challenge. Today I have a wonderful goodie for you! I discovered a while back an app for my iphone called LeafSnap. Here is a description of what this app does:
Leafsnap is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution. This free mobile app uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves.
Leafsnap contains beautiful high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruit, petiole, seeds, and bark. Leafsnap currently includes the trees of New York City and Washington, D.C., and will soon grow to include the trees of the entire continental United States.
This website shows the tree species included in Leafsnap, the collections of its users, and the team of research volunteers working to produce it.
Even if you don't have an iPhone or iPad you can still go to the website and see what LeafSnap has to offer. It even has games on identifying leaves, flowers and fruits.
You can purchase this leaf in my Etsy Store
You can join me on Facebook to learn more about my art/photography tours or to see the itinerary for the 2010 Artistic Adventure Tour to Costa Rica go to the website.