Janet Driver

 The beauty of weeping willows recall many memories.... Monet’s paintings of willows and waterlilies.... a neighbour who had planted a weeping  willow in her garden in memory of her daughter who had died tragically as a teenager...”we could hardly believe it when we heard about the accident... she had always been so full of life... and this tree reminds me of the good times we shared together... I can sit under it on a hot day, in floods of tears, yet watching the leaves dancing in the breeze, reminds me her spirit is still alive...” 

Whenever I had the chance, I sketched weeping willow leaves; one day, in a sudden downpour of rain, I took shelter under a large weeping willow, surprised by how dry it was underneath as the rain pelted down... then I gradually became aware that I wasn’t the only one sheltering there... a gentle rustling movement made me look up to discover a large bird with  a very long tail draped over a branch... we both remained very quiet and still until the rain stopped, and, emerging into the sunshine, the bird shook its tail and slowly opened it out to dry... revealing a beautiful peacock...and as I stood in amazement, three more huge birds slowly emerged from  under the “umbrella “ of this shady tree... how I longed for a camera!    I had no idea that while I had been quietly sketching its leaves, 4 peacocks were also sheltering from the rain under the same tree...

...later on’ looking through my sketches,I was fascinated by the dancing patterns of these leaves... so I bought some antique glass flashed with a thin layer of deep blue over a base of yellow& carefully covered it with a thick clear fablon that would be strong enough to resist the shallow bath of hydrofluoric acid in the special fume cupboard... took my sharp craft knife and cut out the leaf shapes, copying from my sketches and remembering... dancing leaves... pouring rain... and... hidden peacocks... then spending the next few hours watching and waiting for the acid to remove enough glass for the yellow to begin to shine through beneath the blue... then just removing enough of the resist to give different shades of glass giving the effect of light shining through onto different leaves, hopefully adding to the illusion of movement as sunlight shines through the glass...

waiting ... a theme of these days of Advent...   see St Paul’s Cathedral website for their Advent Meditations... the first one was on waiting...