Oak Patch

Oak Patch, originally uploaded by escher1.

I noticed the oak leaves when I was going back down to the car after my run last Thursday on Clougha. The leaves had three colours - green, brown and yellow - many of them with those three colours present on the one leaf. I imagined making a leaf patch on the ground that wouls be a patchwork where the colours would join so there were pools of colour, not fading but each colour linking up with teh same colour on another leaf.

Today I collected some and noticed how the stalks on some were a different colour to the rest of the leaf, some brown ones had yellow stalks, some yellow ones had brown. This was the same with the veins. Some yellow ones had green veins and so on. I like the shape of oak leaves - they remind me of jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Whilst making the leaf fade on the tree branch I noticed the tree as it was framed by another two which would lend itself to containing a stick frame to go around a work. First I fiddled around making a frame wondering what to put inside it. First I thought of a line of sycamore leaves I had left over but then I settled on the oak leaves.

I really liked the mottled brown leaves with the yellow stems so I thought I would make the sculpture fade around this feature. The shape of the tree leant itself to this sort of design so I followed what seemed to go best.

I kept running out of thorns so I had to cannabilise them from the other work and to get the shape I wanted I kept having to peer at it from where I would take the picture. I am glad I did as the shape needed a lot of tweaking but I think in the end it is nicely balanced. I tried not to compromise (even though I was knackered and wanted to go home) but I perservered and collected the right leaves until I got the fade just how I wanted it. This also involved chopping the tops off the yellow ones in the centre as they had too much brown on them and it confused the look. I am pretty pleased with it however. I think it has turned out well.