fo fall

I love it when the leaves change into their vibrant autumnal finery and want to capture the warmth of their colors to hang onto for as long as possible; I'm not sure why my photographs of trees seem to look like one big blur of saturated color. I've abandoned taking pictures of them this season but on my morning walk, I took to looking into last nights' rain puddles to see what I could see..

When I was in grammar school, I remember an art project that required us to press leaves between two sheets of wax paper then iron it to seal them in. It was nice to collect my favorite ones then preserve them to enjoy over the winter months. To this day, I take time to scour the ground for pretty or unusual fall foliage that has fallen. Last year I collected magnolia leaves based on size, shape and curl, pulled out my acrylic paints and practiced artistic license painting several with mixtures of whatever colors I fancied. I left a few in their natural state covering them with polymer medium (gloss) to keep them from browning or tried to mimic natural coloration by combining paints that came close to matching nature. They actually look quite spectacular; I have given some away as gifts or used them as ornamentation when wrapping a present...

Lately I've been pressing leaves with either interesting color patterns and/or shapes between magazine pages, letting them dry then painting a very thin coat of the polymer on both sides to help them retain as much color as possible, I even brought back a few from Sacramento. I have the feeling they along with lots more I picked up in DC are going to find their way into a goddess collage, I feel her coming so...

keep your peepers open!®