A strong background

I have been grappling with the strong background design on this piece. It looks like dappled light shadows and the idea of putting green skeleton leaves on it seemed OK in my imagined vision of the final outcome. Of course this was after I had evolved through numerous other design decisions.

Here are some of the leaves stitched on wash away.

And once they are washed and dry I pin them to the design wall in readiness.

I have applied some white pearl paint in a few areas to try to lessen the impact of strong background, but it didn't make a very noticeable difference. Time to breathe and reassess.