Layered Leaf Printing

In this project, students combined and layered painting and printing techniques using fall leaves as the subject. The focus of the project was creating a well balanced composition using an analogous color scheme (colors that are adjacent to one another on the color wheel). Students used the following techniques in order to create their artworks:

Step One: Rubbing: A throwback to childhood crayon fun, students placed a leaf under their paper and used crayon to firmly rub over the leaf, causing the veins and details of the leaves to appear. Students repeated the procedure to fill their page with overlapping leaves of different sizes, shapes and colors.

Leaf-Mask Stenciling: Leaves were placed on the previously rubbed paper smooth side down. Students wet the paper about an inch away from the leaf with clean water and then loaded their brush with watercolor paint. The paint was brushed out from the center of the leaf onto the dampened areas, creating a softened edge effect. The wax from the crayon rubbing resisted the wet paint, allowing the rubbing to show through. When the leaf was removed, a negative space was left over in the shape of
the leaf. Here is a work with the first two steps completed:

Stamping: For the last printed layer, students used brayers (rollers) to apply block printing ink to the veiny sides of the leaves before pressing the printed surface on the paper. These stamped leaves created a positive print that complimented the negative space left by the mask stenciling in the second step. We talked a lot about good composition and balancing leaf size, placement and color across the page (and off the page too!). Here are the finished works from both sections of my 7th graders: