Introduction: LEAF PRINTS

About: I am an artist living and teaching ART in NYC for over 30 years, and I am a CZT, Certified Zentangle Teacher. I love to explore all sorts of art making both in my teaching and in my own work...check out my sit…

I was recently working on a series of mono-prints of the 4 seasons using leaves and an etching press. I began to photograph the leaves I was using at different stages of the printmaking process. I created a collection of  what I think are pretty interesting images as well as turing 12 of them into each month for a calendar. 

Step 1: How It Began

To make the mono-prints I was rolling ink on pieces of plexi glass. Then I would place the leaves on the plexi and run them through the etching press to ink them. Next I would carefully peel the inked leaves from the plexi and arrange them on my paper the way I wanted them to "offset" . Sometimes I would re-ink a leaf with a different color to get mixture of ink that I liked. Eventually I noticed that the plexi plates at different stages with and without the actual leaves still on them were pretty interesting so I began to make photos of them as well. I used my i-phone camera. The images were pretty cool on their own  and on some I used an app called Romantic Photo, and others I used an app called Auto Painter. 

Step 2: Calendar

I ended up with a lot of interesting images that I thought would represent the different months of a calendar, so I made one. 

Step 3: January

January

Step 4: February

February

Step 5: March

March

Step 6: April

April

Step 7: May

May

Step 8: June

June

Step 9: July

July

Step 10: August

August

Step 11: September

September

Step 12: October

October

Step 13: November

November

Step 14: December

December

Step 15: Winter

This is one of the Winter monoprints, 24"X36"

Step 16: Spring

Spring

Step 17: Summer

Summer

Step 18: Autumn

Autumn

Instructables Design Competition

Participated in the
Instructables Design Competition

Holiday Gifts Contest

Participated in the
Holiday Gifts Contest