Scottish Leaves

I call this Scottish leaves, because I unintentionally created a plaid background for it. My objective was to use a cruciform composition, but I wanted a transition - hence the extra stripes. This painting sort of evolved without a great deal of initial planning, but I'm happy with the result. I started to do the curvy contours on the leaves and ended up putting them on the rocks as well. I was going for a red painting but started with an orange underpainting and when I put the big permanent rose stripes on top, it became very intense. So I decided to make the background have more intensity and the foreground (rocks and leaves) be more neutral. Of course, I wanted the branch to stick out, so I had to give it the most intense colors. It started out looking like a giraffe, but now I think it looks more like an alien hand. Anyway, the whole thing is sort of crazy, but I think it works.