Under the Leaves

Pondering over this theme for about a week or so and wanting to interpret it in some different kind of way, it suddenly occurred to me: Why not show the leaves like this?!

Decades ago, I attended a beautiful wedding held under such a canopy, a chuppah, as it's called in Jewish weddings. (Ironically, while that couple's now sadly divorced, the spectacle of their ceremony still stands out to me as one of the most lovely attended.)

While showing such a tent covering, I also didn't want to limit it to just this religious tradition but open it up to other kinds of marriage ceremonies as well, thus turning the man towards us and leaving it unclear whether the groom was wearing a yarmulke or not (fine as that would be). 

After drawing this imaginary scene out on watercolour paper, I again asked Alex if she'd please get me started by painting in the initial foundation for the sky and leaves (guiding her in the process on how I wanted it to look in general). She thankfully, gladly obliged, which then gave me the courage to take on the rest of it! :) I then proceeded to paint the sky in a bit darker, added different colours to the grass, canopy folds, garlands, etc, and finally ended up drawing in the whimsical details with my ink pen while filling in a few spots here and there with a white marker.

OK, enough on my piece. Time to follow up on yours...!  Do please be sure to visit each person listed below. Thank you so much for playing along. I'm looking forward to seeing how you've interpreted this challenging theme! (The next one will be far easier, I promise!)