Watch as leaves transition from green to yellow to red, from species to species. This observant animated sequence was created by Oakland, California-based engineer and stop-motion animator Brett Foxwell, a side project inspired during the production of another leaf-themed film.

“While collecting leaves, I conceived that the leaf shape every single plant type I could find would fit somewhere into a continuous animated sequence of leaves if that sequence were expansive enough. If I didn’t have the perfect shape, it meant I just had to collect more leaves…”

“The shape is always out there.”

In total, Foxwell gathered, pressed, and photographed over 12,000 leaves. “They are such wondrous creatures,” he shares on Instagram.

“The universes contained within their shapes and the diversity of their forms have boggled my mind.”

The film’s wandering soundtrack is Slyungda by jm france.[…]

More: The Book Of Leaves, a stop-motion exploration of leaf shapes | The Kid Should See This