LEAF Cut Art

Instead of using paper, artist Lorenzo Durán uses leaves to make papercut art. If you think about how delicate a leaf is, you can imagine how challenging and intricately painstaking each piece of art must be to create. He must have a very steady hand!

Doesn't that first image look like an oil painting? Artists are becoming more and more inventive with their choice of canvas. Lorenzo Duran's picks the perfect leaf and then washes, dries, molds and gently cuts away at it until he makes beautiful art. It's an interesting technique based on paper-cutting in China, Japan, Germany and Switzerland. 
 
After studying the paper cutting techniques used in Asia and Europe, Duran figured that he should be able to apply the same techniques to leaves. He began experimenting with this unusual medium, making note of which types of leaves provided the best canvas and which resulted in the most precise cuts.

Incredible!

Duran uses a technique similar to that used all around the world in traditional paper cutting art. The self-taught artist uses his amazing skill to create these small masterpieces which he uses to support himself and his family.

Lorenzo Duran calls his craft Naturayarte, and he is kind enough to share his process on his website. After selecting, washing and drying the leaves, he places them into a press. While they are being pressed, he sketches out a one-of-a-kind drawing for each leaf.

Duran then tapes the drawings to the freshly pressed leaves and uses the drawings as templates for his intricate cuttings. Removing the drawing from the leaf is the trickiest part of the process since the leaves are extremely delicate and prone to ripping. Entire days of work can be lost in an instant if Duran attempts to hurry this part of the creation.

Natural materials are often the most striking in art. Their irregular organic shapes and delicate lines are as breathtaking as any image dreamed up by an artist. These impressive leaf cuttings by Spanish artist Lorenzo Duran combine the best of organic shapes and precise human-made cuts.

Each drawing – and therefore each cutting – is entirely unique. In keeping with the independent artisan vibe of his work, Duran doesn’t set prices for his completed works – he lets the buyers of his art decide what they are worth.

Source : Naturayarte
These are leaf cut out illustrations by Nature’s Art from China.
Natural leaf carving is actual manual cutting and removal of a leaf’s surface to produce an art work on a leaf.
 
The process of carving is performed by artists using tools to carefully remove the surface without cutting or removing the veins. The veins add detail into the subject matter of the carving. The material or most common leaf used in leaf carving is the leaf of a Chinar tree. The Chinar tree is native to India, Pakistan and China. Chinar leaves have a close resemblance to maple leaves.

Natural leaf carving is actual manual cutting and removal of a leaf’s surface to produce an art work on a leaf. The process of carving is performed by artists using tools to carefully remove the surface without cutting or removing the veins. The veins add detail into the subject matter of the carving.  The material or most common leaf used in leaf carving is the leaf of a Chinar tree. The Chinar tree is native to India, Pakistan and China. Chinar leaves have a close resemblance to maple leaves.
 

 

 

 

 

“It is similar to Chinese paper cutting art, where people cut designs out of paper or other vegetable matter, and since these designs are similar, I imagine they’re using the same traditions. There is a tradition of people using things at hand out of a desire to create,” says Rob Sidner, the director of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, which specializes in folk art.

The earliest modern record of leaf carving dates back to 1994 when an artist named Huang Tai Shang claimed to have created this art form and got into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Whatever its origins, it is an art form of great precision and skill, and it requires special tools to remove the surface of the leaf without damaging or removing the veins, which enhance the detail of the carving.

 

 

 

 
The process requires special leaves, which are picked in autumn, unbroken and without insect bites. They are then dried for at least 10 months untouched by sunshine, and then boiled for several hours to kill bacteria.

The artist begins the process by shaving and almost peeling the leaf in half with a knife. When the leaf is scraped free of its outer layers, a near transparent surface appears. After the image is carved, the leaves are carefully dried, a very volatile process, which breaks 60 percent of them.

These leaf carvings sell for between $99 and $224 depending on complexity of design. Due to the fact that most are custom ordered for personal display, major exhibitions seem unlikely, at least for now.