Maple Ice Leaf Disc

Maple Ice Leaf Disc, originally uploaded by ...escher....

The temperatures plunged even further last night, it reached -4 C at home and -5 low on the fells, which is reasonably uncommon for this area.

For Mother Nature to provide me with some different materials to play with left me really inspired and ice, snow and frost are the very definition of ephemeral. So my two favourites things - interesting natural materials and ephemeral sculpture - sent me to bed with the hope that the sun would shine as ice comes alive when hit by low winter sun.

JRTPickle and I had been discussing new ideas and she has come up with some crackers recently (not Christmas ones) so thanks to her for the new ideas and the inspiration.

I prepared these sculptures yesterday so that they would freeze and be ready for the morning. I dashed up to the moors early as low night time temperatures are often followed by melt-warm daytime conditions. I would need to be quick to catch the dawn sun, grab a picture or two before things melted.

This turned out not to be the case. Temperatures stayed low and were low enough to stick ice to ice which broadened the possibilities. When I have tried before it has been too warm to do this.

So I constructed each sculpture using spit to weld them together and positioned them to wait for the sun to peep over the ridge. I knew that cloud was expected by lunchtime and poor weather by the evening so I crossed my fingers the sun would appear.

High level clouded blocked the sun and I waited and waited. She came out for a few seconds and I managed a couple of shots but then the cloud spread even more and the sun was gone again. Instead I concentrated on no-sun pictures as my hopes faded that I wouldn't be in luck to get the ice-shine pictures I craved.

I waited and waited some more and was tempted to pack up and go home. I feared the cloud was already here and set in and I would just be wasting my time.

I was wrong, the sun finally burnt through and I hurried to take pictures before she went in again. And that she did but not before I got what I wanted.

Heavy snow is predicted for this evening and tomorrow. I wonder if there will be lots and will it stay long enough for me to play with? Only Mother Nature can decide.