Saturday, January 22, 2011

A flurry of leaves?

I have always liked this photo I took of a piece of sculpture in a park. I loved the flurry of leaves around the simple wording in the grass.

Barry Smith © Leaves in the grass
On our walks recently Fiona and I have seen many flurries of leaves blown off the trees with our heavy wind and rain. On Friday I decided to create a significant number of metal leaves to reflect a flurry or litter of leaves. I decided to use anodised aluminium - cheap, easy to cut, easy to fold, soft to beat, relatively easy unfold with out annealing and a joy to polish. The anodised aluminium I used came from an old drink tray (gold), several cake 'tins' (copper) and a couple of storage canisters (green).

My reference point was a bunch of leaves I collected our walks.


After much cutting  I made 27 leaf shapes; and then proceeded to beat and polish them.


I did another cutting and beating session this afternoon which meant I had 27 individually crafted leaves. The end product is pretty good. Twenty-seven leaves reflecting the flurry of leaves collected on our walk.

Barry Smith © A flurry of leaves

Barry Smith A flurry of leaves - detail

Barry Smith © A flurry of leaves - detail
I said to Fiona I am still looking for some reddish and lime greenish anodised stuff to finish the Flurry of Leaves.

17 comments:

  1. Barry..the colors are so vibrant and the texture detail is brilliant...gorgeous sculptures! fall is my favorite time of the year..so much inspiration to be found outside.being that it's the dead of winter here...everything is frozen and gray...

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  2. These are gorgeous, Barry! So delicate you would not believe they are metal. I like how they look even more leaflike than the real thing pictured above them! Bravo.

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  3. Barry! absolutely delightful!! love your flurry of leaves ... at first glance i actually thought they were real. even after i know they're not, i still marvel at the realism of them. you make leaves like no other!!

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  4. I love these Barry! I am such a leaf person. I have boxes of them in my studio - for what I don't know, just for the love of them I guess.

    You have captured the grace of these leaves so well.

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  5. You have made these perfectly Barry. A flurry of leaves .... love the sound of it!

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  6. All - thanks for comments - it is interesting to see how others react when one does a heap of one object./

    L- Thanks I was aiming for an autumn look.

    Lut - because they are anodised al - they are as light as the real thing.

    LAM - leaf lovers rule?

    R - you may remember you offered a bit of a challenge many moons ago - you wondered what a whole bowl of leaves would look like so I thought I'd start the process of creating a bowl full. I'm hoping to get some burtn orange and reddish al to add a couple more colours into the mix.

    All - go well and create well. B

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  7. Magnificent compositions with leaves, I like the tones and colors and balance of the combinations.

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  8. i just want to look at this gathering of leaves...so lovely.

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  9. Barry, your leaves are gorgeous!! wowzers, they glimmer and the waves in them make them so appealing. Have you ever worked with, well what is that metal that is a combo of bronze and copper, so it is a bit red? quite pretty. Really fun to watch you find inspiration in the world.

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  10. T- the metal you refer to must be a more copper version of brass. Must keep my eye out for it. One of the good things about using recycled stuff one is always looking at the world through a prism of 'is that something I can deconstruct, cut up, reassemble'. Nature has done it all really - we just try to imitate? Go well and continue to see and capture nature in the glorious way you do. B

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  11. Gorgeous leaves Barry....both life-like and not...they are such lovely individual works of art!

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  12. I can't decide which colour I like best, all are so stunning. You really have captured that leafy feeling. Also thought your Friday fungi photos were delightful.

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  13. absolutely marvelous, you're getting better and better, great work AGAIN!!

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  14. how wonderful-- from a distance they look like real leaves-- I can tell that your part of the world is moving into autumn-- we are supposedly moving SLOWLY into spring-- too cold to tell though :-)

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  15. C, H, M and D - thanks for great feedback - makes me think I could be on to something with this lot. I have a small display exhibition in a display case at our local library in April - I think a shelf of coloured leaves could look good. D - glad you are emerging from your white winter as clear and beautiful as it was.B

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  16. Wow! these are absolutely gorgeous, the colours..textures, so life-like.

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Comments are welcomed - it is good to connect with fellow travellers.