You Can Do Leaf Etching

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

You Can Do Leaf Etching

WHEN you. have been out walking ’’ have you ever picked up the lovely skeleton of a leaf, only to throw it away later because it had become torn and crumpled in your pocket? Have you ever wished you could do something to preserve these leaves and their beauty? If so, the hobby of “leaf etching” will appeal to you. The best method is to get your leaves directly from the trees and do your own “skeletonising.” Every species has its own distinctive tracery of veins, but the best leaves to collect first are holly, chestnut, magnolia, pear, maple, poplar, and sycamore. The leaves should be soaked for several days iu soft water, and the rotting of the green tissues can be hastened by the addition of a little caustic soda or potash. When they are soft and pulpy, their tissues may be gently brushed off with a soft brush. You have now produced the leaf-skeletons which you will want to bleach bone-white. Although the

sun will do this in time, a quicker method is to steep them iu a weak solution of chloride of lime and dry them between blotting-paper. That is how you obtain your own specimen skeletons, but if you 'vant to inscribe a picture on the leaf it is a

An Autumn Hobby

good idea to leave that picture In green in the middle of the leaf and skeletonise the background. A good method is to cut out the design in thin cardboard, such as a postcard, and to hold this firmly on the leaf while the green tissues surrounding it are brushed away. With a little practice, simple designs —such as a bird in flight—are easily done. There are three good methods of preserving the frail reticulations of leaves, and in all cases additional strength can be given by varnishing them with gum arable. The simplest way of all is to tlx them with a little gum. or strips of stamppaper, in a black-paper album, but a prettier effect is produced by pressing the leaves between two sheets of glass, which are then bound together with passe-partout. Seed-vessels and bulbs can be skeletonised in the same way as leaves, and an old swede turnip makes a wonder-

ful sphere of delicate, woody tracery. Few people recognise the intricate network of a turnip skeleton, for it is more like tine ivory carving than a vegetable. “Chinese lanterns’’ and the wings of sycamores also make interesting specimens.