Etching a leaf

One of the leaves I had collected was a skeleton of a magnolia leaf. The tree in our garden produces extremely large fleshy leaves that tend to decay as skeletons rather that simply rotting down into compost. The one I found while looking for things to use in my printing projects was a rather small leaf from this tree, but it was the only skeleton I found as I had already cleaned up all the leaves last fall.

It really is a beautiful thing, so delicate - but it turns out to be very durable!

I showed it to Helen and asked her what method would work the best to reproduce it. I didn't want to destroy it but that didn't seem to be an option - we thought! She said that the best way to try to get the delicacy of the leaf was probably going to be etching but that the leaf would probably be destroyed in the process. As I will be able to collect more leaf skeletons this fall, I was willing to sacrifice this one.

I had done the etching induction last December but I honestly could not recall some of the details of it... I did it, have the plate I made, etc. But I think because (at the time) I didn't think I would be interested in using the technique I deleted it from my memory bank.

Helen guided me through the whole process again. 

In the first go at it we discovered that the leaf did not make enough of an impression in the ground on the plate using the press - after taking about 15 minutes to CAREFULLY try to remove the leaf from the plate - with surprizing success.

In the photo below you can see the difference between the pressing of the plate and the hand-rubbing. In the pressed one on the right you can tell there is no detail in the leaf, but in the centre you can see it.

Leaf on left, impression from hand rubbing in centre,
impression from pressing on right

So we cleaned the plate off and tried pressing by hand with a bamboo thingy (can't remember what Helen called it) - it was for rubbing/pressing down things. Another, lighter, layer of ground was applied to the plate, then the leaf, then tissue and paper, then I worked at pressing it in by hand for quite a long time.

This time the impression was excellent, but the ground left surrounding it was too sparse. We tried to apply more ground over the plate, but it was a bit messy in the end. Afterwards it occurred to me that I could have cut out a blank of the leaf to place over the impression to protect it, then rolled another layer of ground over the plate... next time!

Then the plate went into the chemical/acid bath for about an hour and a half. After cleaning this is what I had. The messiness around the leaf shape is where we couldn't get more ground applied, and also made a few marks in it.

Then I ran some prints...

First go was light green... however it didn't really make the image pop. Helen told me that that colour is a little too "light" as in not dense enough to really hold to the plate. The filigree skeleton doesn't really register.

So I cleaned up the plate and used red, which is much thicker, and it does show the detail clearly

I am pleased with the end result and happy that my leaf skeleton survived completely intact. I might now use it in my next monoprinting session - not the first pressing as the ink would probably overwhelm it, but probably in the ghosts.

But I want my results to be much clearer, deeper and striking. I am going to collect more leaf skeletons as soon as I can, and use a heavier ground, be more precise with setting up and removing them, and they will be left in the chemical bath for up to five hours at least to get a really DEEP etching! Then the embossing will be really fantastic, I hope.