I love it when we can mix nature study and art together and this week we found an excellent project to work on together.
The Handbook of Nature Study suggests making leaf prints as a part of studying a tree (Lesson 173). The directions in the book include gasoline and kerosene and I thought there had to be a more modern and easy way to accomplish lovely leaf prints.
I found this website with easy to follow instructions.
Naturalist's Apprentice: Making Leaf Prints
We used ink on stamp pads for this project. I have a small collection of colors and we started off with brown. You might try using washable ink pads since your fingers do get a little messy.
You really need to press the leaf firmly onto the ink pad so you probably do not want to use dried up leaves since they will more than likely crumble on your ink pad and leave behind a mess.
After pressing onto the ink pad the leaf doesn't seem to have a lot of ink on it and I was surprised how beautifully the impression turned out on the paper.
We made a few test prints on scratch paper and then we got busy working in our nature journals. We found that using multiple colors on the leaf made a really nice print.
You can really see the veins and the leaf shape if you press the leaf firmly onto the paper and work carefully so you don't move it around before lifting it up.
Once you get started you can be a little creative if you have the desire. Wouldn't it be pretty to have a tree with blue leaves?
We made our prints, added some labels, and now they are securely tucked into our nature journals.
This will be a project we use more often since I like it even better than leaf rubbings. We will be adding an ink pad and a few Wet Ones into our nature pack to use when we are out and about.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
