Leaf Curtain

Leaf-Curtain-Framed, originally uploaded by escher1.

The beech tree at the end of the road had three distint colours - yellow, orange/brown and green and I had been considering what to make with them for a while. An idea about placing them in a split stick and staking them into the ground and some other ideas but today the sign is out so I must make something where I can photograph the sun shining through it.

Using dried grass stalks I pinned together a frame of green leaves then filled in the frame with brown, orange then finally yellow leaves. Next time I will try and build it from the inside out as it became quite difficult to pin the last few leaves in middle. Quite a few of the leaves tore and needed repinning but it made it easier to pin them under a vein. Now finished I needed to find a place to pin it up so the sun would shine through it. This proved to be quite difficult!

We went to the cemetry to harvest some thorns to pin it up with, while I carried it around carefully in a folded up sheet, but horizontal branches or frames to pin it to proved elusive. We walked around 90% of the park before finding somewhere right next to the three cherry trees with wonderfully coloured leaves.

The light breeze was a real pain and I had to wait for ages while it stopped and the curtain hung undisturbed. Something was missing though and another yellow leaf needed pinning to the middle. I went searching for a yellow beech leaf and found one nearby, although the tree seemed to be a different beech variety.

Once I had pictures in the can (or on the card) there we went back to where the work was originally made and ironically, there was now a frame in a tree that I could pin it to. It didn't turn out as neat as I wanted but it did look quite good with the sun shining through it. I was surprised to still see it there pinned to the tree on Sunday but by Monday it had gone.