Playing with pastels

I've had a bit of a downer and took a break from doing art but that hasn't stopped me THINKING about it. I'm still thinking about my project X and have gone full-circle and come back to the idea of working on my first canvas, using gesso and mixed media. So I need to formulate a brief. But first here's that pastel drawing i did of the leaf. Been thinking about how to achieve what's "in my head"...but proabaly just need to through caution to the wind and experiment...