Autumn 'Until the last leaf falls'

AUTUMN INSPIRATIONS

I adore Autumn and the relief of the long summer heat is just a small part of my favourite season. It is the glorious fall colour and the slow reveal of interlaced branches, the scent of woodsmoke in the evening and a cool chill in the early morning.

'Until the last leaf falls' are a range of glass Autumn leaf sun catcher's that transform pencil sketches into luminous glass. See my website for more details.

There are 2 books I love to read in Autumn, both urban fantasies. One is 'The Autumn Castle' by Australian author Kim Wilkins, and that is where the title comes from. The enchantment in the story (that connects the land of faery to modern day Berlin) can only last 'Until the last leaf falls'. The other novel is 'Memory and Dream' by Canadian author Charles de Lint. One of the quotes included in this book captures my feelings perfectly about Autumn and Winter trees... that feeling of waiting and promise.

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape - the loneliness of it - the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it - the whole story doesn't show."
                                                                                                        -Attributed to Andrew Wyeth.


PROCESS: The glass process is powder printing and fusing. I turn my sketches into a screen print and push the coloured glass powder through the screen. For the leaves I cut, drill and finish glass circles  and use up to 6 different glass powders of varying Autumnal hues to create unique colour ways. After the circles are 'screen printed' I fire them to fuse the glass powder to the glass 'plate'.

Second day of Winter

Lots of frost, that stayed around for most of the morning and a leaf popsicle!

We don't have particularly serious Winters here in Australia, but Canberra does get chilly. About -5or6 for frosty mornings and days of 8-13. I find the cold is more of a novelty for a few months before Spring and the heat of Summer come back.

Autumn leaves 2012

This year I have had even less time to appreciate Autumn leaves which are one of my great loves. I still find old pressed leaves of autumns past in various novels. On our way up the Dooralong this weekend valley we stopped to admire this long driveway of plane trees and liquid ambers.

A trip to the blue mittens

I just love the colour combination that Autumn delivers. That wind scrubbed blue sky and the selection of reds, oranges, yellows and purples spattered, torn and flying across it. It gets me every year.

So before all the autumn colour becomes mulch a trip to the Blue Mountains is in order.


Brunch at "il postino's" at Wentworth falls.

The wind really had it's teeth out: very pretty (for the choreography of leaves and tousling of hair) and invigorating but by the end of the day fingers and noses definitely needed the mug of tea (even though it was delivered in separate parts; hot water, tea bag, milk) and fruit pie on the way back via Bilpin.
Dougie rugged up so much once we got out of the van at Tomah that his eyes and eyebrows were the only clue that there actually was a person animating the pile of polar fleece and knit admiring the Proteas at Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens.