Nature's Still Life #4 -My Ugly Painting

I call this my ugly painting because the neutral grey background with the drippy texture gives a very cold gritty mood. I tried to contrast the tones with the tints in the leaves, but I think those colors came out too sweet to go with the ugly background, so I'm afraid the mood is not very consistent.

This painting started with a textured gesso surface. I used lots of things to make the texture: bubble wrap, mesh, brush dabs, etc. But you can barely see any of it after I applied the paint. So I spritzed some water and let it drip and wow, talk about texture (I think it ended up being too much). The one success with this painting (although it is hard to see because the other texture overpowers it) are the rocks. I used a really cool technique where I put down alot of color and then put wax paper cut out in the shape of rocks over it while it was still damp. I painted right over the wax paper and let some drip under the creases. When it was dry and I lifted it off, the rocks had all this speckled and creased textures. I'm not sure if it would come out the same way on non-gessoed paper, but I will definitely try it again.