Leaves...

 

And More Leaves....

I Hope you will not be Surprised, Dear Readers, to learn that I have been making lots and lots of leaves! I really need to get ahead of the blossoms with the leaf construction, and finally decided that the best way to tackle the project was with small batches. Lots of small batches! It feels so much less daunting to start a batch of forty leaves (20 stems worth) and know that in about an hour and a half, or less if all goes well, I will have a completed batch. I had tried an eighty leaf batch.... which would be enough leaves for the ten blossom clusters per week that I am making.... but completing the eighty leaves took Hours and hours. I can usually fit a batch of forty leaves into my daily blossom routine too. This is piling up the leaves at a great rate! I am using regular copier paper and the "leaf punch" I bought years ago at Michael's. You can see it in the picture above.

And I am cutting the leaves from the stem, 

but am maximizing the length of each leaf

 by cutting diagonally across the stem.

 One of the great things about this leaf punch is

 that the leaves are not all exactly the same size,

 which is how they are naturally on my RL shrub.

I get five leaves per punch, eight punches per batch.

I glue a leaf on one end of the stems

 (using the cut-off wires from the blossom making)

 and once I have glued twenty stems,

 I add the leaf to the other end.

This might seem silly since the leaves will be cut apart

 before attaching to the blossom clusters,

 but it really makes handling the leaves for painting much easier.

 The wire is long enough to hold and not get paint on your hands

 as would happen if I tried to make the stems short first.

I paint the undersides of one leaf, 

(using a mixture of chromium green, cadmium yellow

 and white artist's acrylic paint)

 and by the time I have done all twenty on one end of the stems,

 the first is dry and ready to be held while I paint the other end.

And by the time all the undersides are painted, 

the first is dry enough to paint the top side....

You might notice that I am first painting a stripe down the center

 using the same color as the underside of the leaves,

 first one end and then the other as before...

This is so that once I have painted the top color, 

I will not have to add a very very narrow stripe for the center vein...

 

Here you can see I am mixing the color for the top side of the leaves,

(a mix of chromium green and mars black acrylic artists paint)

and comparing it to my sample chart.

It is very easy to mix it too dark, 

because the paint darkens as it dries.

 

When painting the top side,

 I carefully paint one side of the leaf,

 as straight as possible stem to tip,

 

And then equally carefully, paint the other side,

 leaving a very thin stripe showing the underside color.

Then I let them dry....

 

before doing the same with the other end.

Here are the completed forty leaves!

All that remains is to fold the stems and cut them apart....

And attach them to the blossom clusters!

I am starting with seven leaves per blossom cluster...

And so far I have managed to keep up

 with adding the leaves on the new blossom clusters...

on the left (in the "new Day mug") you can see

 the ten blossom clusters from last summer

 that still don't have any leaves attached.

But I now have enough leaves to get cracking on that too!

And today I made the blossom clusters number 85 and 86....

they just need to have their leaves added too!

So you can see, Dear Readers,

 I have figured out that to make the leaves

In relatively small batches 

means I am making more Leaves... 

and More leaves....

And more leaves....!