No...they frame it nicely.

Hey Art- love the bug! What everyone is saying about lighting and contrast is great. Kristian's point to be mindful of the level of render goes a long way as well- and actually makes getting to a nice finish quicker! I just wanted to add a quick note about shapes and movement in your composition. I think you're right about the leaves. I'm looking at the direction(s) they lead me as well as the overall shape they form as one graphic element. (Even as the individual shape of the leaves are important- the grouping of these elements also form their own shape.) Being able to see through your subject matter and break it down into its primary shapes helps us compose our images. I simplified the leaves to move primarily across the page and added a counter movement to help balance it. (I'm not worried about a few elements leading off the page as long as there's a strong path for the eye to follow.) You can apply the same concept to your original composition- and create a spiral like motion which would be pretty cool! It's just a matter of designing the shapes to lead into each other. It gets pretty fun when you start designing different paths for the viewer's eye to follow! Color helps as well, but this beetle is so awesomely yellow that there's no question it's the focal point- just remember you are the composer! You get to design the leaves however you like to help it support the image as a whole. Great work!

The eye is drawn to the area of greatest contrast. When I squint at your drawing, the leaves against the background are the greatest contrast. To focus on the beetle, render the background and make it close to the leaves in contrast. Once that is one, the beetle will pop out and attract the eyes. Also, soften the edges of the leaves so they don't match the beetle for rendering clarity.

I think something else that may be possible to consider is if any light is going to be reflecting some of that green onto the beetle. Bringing a bit of that green into the beetle itself could also help. Is this Prismacolors? I was going to suggest using some blues over leaves to dull that green down a bit. The yellow is beautiful, and along with bringing in some of the green here and there into the yellow, you could also maybe try a few more hints of the orange you've used at the edges to accentuate (maybe almost subtly frame) the beetle more. All just thoughts.

The reason leaves are guiding away from the beatle is because of contrast. Eyes tend to follow naturally the sharper contrasts first. In this image the dark tone of the leaves creates an extreme contrast with the light tone of the paper. On the contrary the light tone of the beetle creates a softer contrast agains the tone of the paper. To solve this you could make the surrounding space to the beetle darker so the yellow pops up more. Or you could soften the tone of the leaves so it resembles the one of the background. Hope it helps.

Hey Art, first of all, great job on this. It's a really fun study, I totally see it going into a Natural History Book, or being on the display in some museum. What I would say is you're probably correct. One way of solving this isn't necessarily removing them, I think they fit into the image really well. Right now, there's nothing telling me where to look. The entire image is evenly rendered, and because of that the leaves pop out way more than the beetle (the main subject). What I would do personally is add some atmospheric perspective, and some fog from the bottom. Even if the background isn't an important part of telling the story, it's still incredibly important in giving the viewer a road map on where to look. On my profile I have some images in my albums by Anders Zorn and John Singer Sargent, in those drawings you can kind of get an idea what I mean. Their compositions are deceptively simple generally, one or two figures just sitting or standing around. Part of the reason their art is so successful is because the background is used entirely to complement their subject, and doesn't distract from the purpose of the image which was their client. In Stan's video How to Shade a Drawing around 14 minutes you can see how he plans out the composition. Even as a simple composition, I think he's still successful making a very engaging image just using those fundamentals. Think of the goal of your image, and then create a hierarchy of importance based off that goal. In this case it might be Beetle > Leaves > Background. With that in mind though, you'll be able to solve those problems of where to look easier. I hope this helps and good luck! -Kristian

If i may comment, firstly this is a great drawing well done. In my opinion i dont feel the leaves guide you away from the main image. The bright vibrant color of the beetle is both contrasted by the darker green leaves, and is in a way "framed" by them, creating a clear focal point for this peace. Im new here too sorry for the long comment, but i hope im making sense. Again, great work.