The Summer Leaves

The Summer Leaves

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Janet.

Janet liked drawing very much. Janet lived with her father, Tom.

Tom had shown Janet a picture, put some paper down and drawn around the picture to copy it, and then coloured it in.

Janet loved it.

She started to draw around another picture, and before long, she had coloured it in. It was a shortcut to learning to draw. Janet had to look hard at the picture before she could draw the outline, but once she had, she coloured it in the same way by copying the outlines she saw.

Tom had shown her when Janet was five, and she had not looked back.

Now Janet was 12, she still enjoyed it just as much, though she had learned more techniques since then using chalk, wax crayons, watercolours and lots of different materials.

It was a windy day on the mountainside, and Janet was taking pictures with her camera.

The heather moved in the wind, and she liked watching the leaves rustle in the trees.

It was the end of summer.

The grass had dried, and there had been a drought, so the hillside was made up of shades of yellow and brown. The leaves had fallen because of the lack of water.

She was looking at the whole hillside for inspiration to draw an end-of-summer picture.

Tom was waiting for her at their house when she returned home after taking the pictures.

“Ah, there you are. It’s dinnertime!” said Tom.

“Yes,” she said. “When I was taking the photos, I noticed how dry and stressed the trees were because of the shortage of water, and how the leaves had fallen as though it was autumn, only it wasn’t autumn yet.”

“I would not like it if we ran out of water,” said Janet.

“No, it would not be good,” echoed Tom.

“Here is your dinner. Are you going to do some painting after dinner, or go and meet Sarah? - I called ahead and made sure she knows to expect you.”

“No, not today,” she said. “I’m feeling too sad.”

“Oh. What’s wrong?” said Tom.

“Well, the dry grass and leaves make me feel sad. It is as if everything has died—as if there is no life left. It makes me feel such a sense of loss.”

“I see. Yes, it does look a little sad. But it will all come back; plants are good like that,” said Tom. “As soon as there is a little water, they will come back. It won’t be like spring, but they will look a little less flat, and fewer leaves will fall to the ground.”

“Well,” said Janet, “I hope it rains soon.”

Janet finished her dinner, feeling a little better, and then said to Tom, “I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’m going to visit Sarah for a while.”

“Okay,” said Tom. “See you in a bit.”

Janet took her drawing set with her and walked down the street and around the corner, past the apple tree.

She knocked on the door, and there was Sarah.

Janet said, “Hello. I thought it would be good if we could draw together for a while. Would you like that?”

Sarah smiled and said, “Of course—let’s have a look at your photos and see what we can draw. I’ve just finished dinner, so I’m free.”

Janet stepped inside, wiping her feet on the mat. The house was warm from the afternoon sun.

They went up to Sarah’s room and stepped out onto the balcony.

There was a table on the balcony where they laid out the cardboard mat so they could draw.

“I thought we could try drawing the leaves falling from the tree. I’m not sure how we can make them appear to be falling.”

“Let’s try,” said Sarah.

They started with a wash for the background. Instead of a blue wash, they used a pale, watery yellow wash that would show the sunlight in the clouds.

“All right, that’s a good start.”

Sarah asked, “How many trees? Is there going to be anything else in the painting other than the trees?”

“Let’s take a look at the photos and see what else there was.”

Sarah and Janet continued to draw the outlines and then paint in the colours for an hour or so.

At the end, they had two very different paintings.

When they saw what each other had painted, they looked across and smiled.

Sarah said, “I cheated!”

Janet said, “We were meant to draw from the photos. You have painted the same scene as I have, but as though it were spring.”

“Yes,” said Sarah. “I could not bear how dry the trees looked in their autumn colours. They are lovely shades of gold and brown in your photographs, but I wanted to make the leaves appear as though they were falling. I painted half the tree green, with the leaves slowly turning golden, and then I twisted them as they were falling so that they looked as though they were moving.”

“That’s good,” said Janet. “My painting shows what I saw in the photograph as it was. It looks dry, doesn’t it? I was telling my dad how it made me feel a little sad—the bare tree branches with the leaves on the ground. I drew the leaves spinning too, to make them appear as though they were falling.”

“Yes, but with a little water, it becomes green again.”

“Yes, somehow, Sarah, you have shown the leaves not only falling but also the passing of the seasons. Your painting shows the trees passing from spring into the dry season.”

“I think that’s enough for today. I had better go and show my dad.

“I will take a picture of your drawing too and show him how you made it appear as though the seasons were passing through the picture.” Janet jumped out of the chair and pointed her camera at Sarah’s picture.

“All right, thanks for the drawing time. You really cheered me up. The little bit of spring in your picture was a great idea.”

“Okay,” said Sarah. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Janet walked back down the street to her house and showed Tom her picture and the photograph of Sarah’s picture.

She said excitedly, “Sarah showed me two new things, Dad!”

“She showed me how to draw the passing of time by using the colours of spring and autumn, and she showed me how to make the leaves look as though they were falling. It was great.”

Tom smiled and said, “Yes, I can see the falling leaves in your picture. It sounds as though you had a great time.”

“Time to get ready for bed.”

Janet went upstairs, leaving the picture with Tom.

Tom smiled, looked at Janet’s painting and thought to himself, “That sounds like an evening well spent.”

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