From the Artist: I am new to painting and this is my first submission to About.com's painting site, and my third completed painting ever. I wanted to experiment so I used two different chromatic blacks: the first was 1 part carmine red, 2 parts burnt umber, and 2 parts Prussian blue -- I used this for the sky. The branch was done with a mixture of 1 part carmine red, 1 part Pussian blue, and 2 parts burnt umber.

I am happy with the moon and the big cloud that goes in front of it, but the leaves don't look right to me at all. I know I have a lot to learn and I would appreciate any constructive criticism from more experienced painters. Please ignore the awful photography!

From the Painting Guide: I think you should indeed be happy with the moon and cloud, the colors and sense of mood. The leaves distract my attention, and I would be inclined to paint them out altogether, to just have the branch.

Or just one leaf. When there's an even number of objects, our brains tend to 'tidy' things up and see things in pairs. Having just one makes the viewer's eye move around the composition more. (See Composition Class: Choosing the Number of Elements for more on this.)

Hold up your hand to hide one of the leaves, and see what you think. I would take out the top one. Also consider painting the leaf so it's less one tone, as if there's moonlight shining through thinner bits.