A Squiggle of Hedge Apples

Every fall the hedge apples visit like some kind of vibrant, squiggly, smelly aliens, and I'm always so overjoyed by their presence.  I feel such kinship with these sticky balls of fluorescence.

If hedge apples had a group name, it would be a squiggle.  Storm drains are the perfect place to find a squiggle of hedge apples.  Grass, fall leaves, and other foliage can easily hide hedge apples, but storm drains are a perfect backdrop for them.  

Last fall I could no longer resist the temptation of the chartreuse calling to me from one of our many storm drains where I live.  So I sat with them.

I took a lot of pictures.  I looked at all the shadows of each picture and noticed that there was a world of colors living just inside the shadows, and that the shadows were everywhere.  

It took me a while to figure out a hedge apple method that clicked with me.  I initially laid out the tiny pieces with no color underneath, and it just didn't work, so I added a layer of paper underneath the tiny pieces.  I divided up the hedge apple colors into three categories of light, medium, and dark, and those shadows stayed consistent throughout the four pieces.  The background leaf litter shadows changed with each collage.  As for the leaf litter colors, I went effing wild with them.  Every tree that ever existed lives above that storm drain (at least in my imagination).  I've never had so many different paper tubs out all out at once!

I settled on four different collages and spent a lot of time precutting the hedge apple slivers.  Each time I worked with the hedge apples I started the journey by cutting more slivers.  By the fourth piece I was so over it!  Naturally, the fourth one is my favorite, mostly because I saved the cranberry shadows for the last one.  If it weren't for the excitement of cranberry shadows, I would have heaved the last one in the timeout pile with exceptional force.

About a week after finishing all the hedge apples, I found myself looking at a 24X24" blank wooden canvas I had on hand, and I could already see the giant hedge apples taking shape in the wood grain.  So who knows.  This may not be the last of the hedge apples.