leaf traces
Magnolia buds are bursting forth on the trees
while traces of last fall’s leaves lie like skeletons
perchance to become future fossils
April 12, 2011 in Nature, Photoworks by Marja-Leena
by Marja-Leena Marja-Leena Rathje
on printworks and other passions
by Marja-Leena
Magical, aren’t they? What lucky finds, and I like how they echo the fossils.
What lovely ephemerals–I am afraid that you are the only record for them! But they cast a little spell too.
Lucy, yes, I adore these lacy skeletons, a reward for not raking all the leaves away in the fall. And my feeling exactly about their echoing the fossils – which is why I decided to post these instead of the flowers.
Marly, ephemerals they are indeed, glad you like! As a newer reader here, you might like the spells cast by these scans.
Liked the scans… And the pottery analogy, which seemed apt in the colors. The second one ought to have been part of a wreath in Miss Havisham’s hair…
Marly, you’ve mentioned Miss Havisham before, I think. This time I went to google images for her and found many fabulous pictures of her with wild hair and wreaths!
It’s amazing just how beautifully nature treats us to visions of exquisite loveliness even in decay. I think there may be a personal lesson there.
You frequently conjure Miss Havisham! Stately or lovely decay always rings my Havisham bell…
Of course, I love Dickens.
Susan, exactly, and I’m sure there’s a personal lesson there too.
Marly, well, I’m delighted to conjure such magic for you! And I love Dickens too. Your blog is full of magic too, just it’s name alone….
Not difficult to imagine the wood sprites bringing these lacy beauties home to dress their windows.
I found an entire leaf skeleton on the compost heap a few years ago. I still have it between the pages of a sketch book. That same year I made a print of it and subsequently by repeating the image in reverse and putting the two images stem to stem mimicked a pair of wings which I used in a Christmas card.
Rouchswalwe, wood sprites and window dressings, I like that!
Joe, you made a print?! You are full of surprises with your creativity. May I ask what technique you used? Do you still have a print to share with us all on your blog?
the children love to find these, they carry them to me. i will tell them these ideas about wood sprites and lace! and prints! we’re sorry to miss your glamorous magnolias, though spring in the countryside here is putting on an astonishing show. just now there’s a massive tree head to toe in flower like a giant in a wedding gown. x
Elisa, it’s wonderful to see how imaginative children are with natural materials, isn’t it? Your spring sounds wonderful, especially that tree that looks like a wedding gown! It is slow and late here. The magnolia flowers are opening ever so slowly. We even had frost flowers on the skylight this morning and the ski hills have reopened with the recent dump of new snow.
That was presumptious. I should have said that I scanned it on my printer, a different kettle of fish, I know only too well.
Joe, thanks for coming back. So you have one of those printer-scanner combinations and made a digital inkjet print. Nothing wrong with that, I do it a lot too! The term printmaking now covers such a wide range of techniques that I’m always asking about the specific method. For instance, you might have made your leaf skeleton into a collagraph, or done a photo-etching as two other possibilities.