Happy Harvest

I wanted to create something that represented fall. For a long time the only thing that I could think of was Thanksgiving and cornucopias which is not at all what I was trying to accomplish.

So I broke it down into single items that reminded me of fall. I first made the pumpkin and then I made the fall leaves. To me sunflowers are fall flowers and I thought that might be nice to use. I tried really hard to think of something else. What else does nature give us that reminds me of fall. Finally came up with the cattails.

The pumpkin was pretty easy and didn’t require much thought. Then came the leaves. I loved making all the leaves. Each leaf has pretty much the same shape, so the fun was in mixing and blending the colors of each leaf. After the leaves I drew the sunflowers, which were pretty simple since I had made sunflowers before. Next came the cattails. The cattails were the most difficult element for me to make.

I first started drawing the cattails, and all I could see from my drawing was weenies on a stick. No matter what I changed or what I tried, I still got the same results. So, I decided to do some research and look at some photographs of cattails to see what I wasn’t getting right. As I was looking at photographs of cattails I finally came to a realization that all cattails look like weenies on a stick. With that realization I became satisfied with my drawing and proceeded on.

After I had completed each individual element of the design I started putting them all together. That is when the magic happened. Each element just fell into place as if the piece was drawn as one. The final piece element that I added was the blue background.

Sometimes in creating a new design you have to look at it like a jigsaw puzzle. You have all the pieces in front of you and you know they all fit together, it is just figuring out how they fit together.

Overall I was very pleased with the outcome and to me this is what fall is about. When I was finished and looking at the piece the one thing that surprised me the most was how brilliant and vibrant the colors were. That was a very pleasant surprise that made me smile!

Happy Harvest Card by debipayne
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