“A gust of wind rattles the window, and I look out. Leaves are whooshing all over the place, flying past horizontally as if they have engines of their own.”
― Kate Messner, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.    

Let us during this beautiful season consider "leaves". No, no, not about raking them up and getting rid of them, that will come. For now, as we enjoy the colorful display that the leaves are giving us, we must consider the humble leaf just for a few minutes. Since they are sacrificing their very lives, just to give us some beauty, they do deserve a moment of our thought and attention.

We have a huge linden tree in our backyard. This tree has very large leaves which, this fall, it has unceremoniously covered our entire backyard! Lawn, pond, flower garden, deck and furniture. All mounded with beautiful huge yellow and brown leaves. The whole surface of our backyard has become a bed of quivering leaves rustling in the beautiful warm (for now) fall breezes.

There is no shortage of leaves at our house.

I scooped some of these into a garbage bag and took them to art class this morning, destined to be the subject of my students artistic scrutiny in the usual contour drawing exercise at the beginning of each class. The warm-up for the main course to come!

What an amazing job Ilene Sumner and Sheressa Beardy have done drawing their leaves.

So what is so amazing about this leaf that abounds in such numbers around us?

First, there is the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves. This becomes especially evident in a camping environment. It seems here in the city, there is to much noise or our houses are too soundproof for us to really be aware of this phenomenon. The sound of rustling leaves us a beautiful backdrop of nature music in our ears. It is restful, reassuring and brings a peace to our souls. A kind of symphony we hear and respond to without thinking. 

Then there are leaves that bring healing, physical healing to our wounds and ailing muscles. 

Another thing we often forget is the fact that without leaves we as air breathing humans and animals would not survive. Without that amazing process leaves go through to live and grow, we would simply suffocate. They are very important indeed.

Finally, it seems that leaves can actually fly. We notice this especially in the fall season when the air is filled with leaves moving in the wind. loosening themselves from their trees from any and all heights and making their way down to the earth in such interesting and creative ways, flittering and fluttering all the way. Often carried by the breeze on journeys of long distances.

Even when landed, they continue to move, flutter, dance, bounce and gather, here then there, restless, seeking by their movements to entertain and be noticed still.

Leaves are a wonder, important and a necessity. Let us look around and drink in the beauty of the season with new appreciation.

“and the leaves were telling secrets to the wind.”
― Peter Mulvey

It's fall. So with that, we are beginning a project called "The Four Season Tree." We've just had the "Fall Equinox" on September 22 so the signs of fall will become more evident. Not only will the trees turn and display their amazing colors, but the days will also 
continue to become shorter and shorter.

This art project's purpose is to use the oil pastels I had introduced to the students in the last class. The art will represent not only fall but the four seasons of the year. 

I drew out the concept of the whole project on the white board so the students would have an idea of what was expected and what the finished product would look like. Then I handed each student the card stock on which they would draw this picture. Following this I now walked through each aspect of the picture with them. We began with pencil drawing out the three lines outlining what would be the areas for each of the four seasons. Then I illustrated how they would draw the tree. Once they were happy with the that, they could draw out the three lines and the tree with black ink markers. Once that was done they could erase their pencil lines and begin to fill in the tree with the markers, as you see in the photo above.

Several of the students finished their trees and began filling in one or two of the four season areas of the drawing.

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”
―  Yoko Ono