Maple Leaf Watercolor Cards

The autumn maples have started dropping leaves that are very beautiful so I picked a few up to attempt to copy the color patterns.  On the leaves,  some colors blend but others have sharp edges.  Light value veins stand out. 

Here is my first attempt:

The first attempt has leaf edges off the page - a good thing, according to the compositional rule; and the finished card has interesting negative shapes.  Later cards used smaller leaves, so the leaf was surrounded by the paper background:

My method for preserving the leaf veins as white paper using a burnishing tool was not as effective as I wanted:  the ball point of the tool imprinted lines on the paper which then absorbed more watercolor not less: the opposite of what I wanted.

So I tried using white wax candle to outline the veins instead of waxed paper and burnishing tool:

Which do you prefer?