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August 8, 2020

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Fallen leaves turn over a new leaf in creative artworks

Everyone loves the glorious days of autumn when leaves turn gold and crimson, creating a crunchy carpet underfoot. But when the leaf litter begins to decompose, a life cycle ends for the year.

Not for Luo Yuehua, 65. She gives leaves a second life.

Five years ago, on a stroll around a community garden, Luo was inspired to create art from leaves.

“It was an autumn day,” recalled Luo. “I walked by happenstance into a hidden corner of my neighborhood. There were several gingko trees there, and the ground was covered with bright golden foliage. As a gentle breeze blew across the trees, a few more leaves wafted to the ground, like butterflies dancing in the air.”

Luo picked up some leaves of different shapes and took them home, where she put them in a book. Leaves, she explained, need to be pressed for at least six months until they are flattened and dry. And the pages of the book can’t be glossy, she added, or they won’t absorb the moisture in the leaves.

“I have actually collected leaves as bookmarks since my childhood,” said Luo.

Taking out an old book, Luo gently turns pages enclosing leaves collected during a trip to Japan last year.

An artwork featuring around 40 colorful “butterflies” arranged in concentric circles hangs on a wall in her home. From a distance, the painted leaves really look like butterflies. They are so lifelike.

A graduate of an arts and crafts school, Luo used to do ink-wash painting in her spare time. She excels in portraying squirrels and plants.

With over 40 years of painting experience behind her, Luo now replaces rice paper with leaves. Instead of using acrylic paint, she sticks with water-based ink and pigments, which are able to produce a smooth and homogeneous dispersion on leaves.

Since leaves are much smaller than rice paper, Luo often uses the Xiao Baiyun type of calligraphy brush, suitable for writing small, regular script, to apply paints.

“Every leaf has a different shape and color,” said Luo. “The most difficult part of making leaf artwork is layout, which needs to fit the shape of leaves.”

One of Luo’s gingko artworks portrays a fisherman on a wooden boat, casting a net to catch fish. With four birds soaring under a glowing red sun, the background of the artwork is the original color of a gingko leaf. Its pale yellow, along with the texture of leaf veins, adds a quaint touch to the artwork.

“I drew inspiration from a trip to Jinshan District,” said Luo. “Most of my works are inspired by nature. I like traveling and taking photos.”

The day before our interview, Luo fell and badly scraped a knee while taking a picture of blue sky and white clouds. That isn’t stopping her from going on a family outing after our interview.

Apart from gingko leaves, Luo also collects leaves from plum and sycamore trees — and even from trees she can’t identify by name, like the one standing in front of her apartment building.

Green leaves turn dark after being pressed for months. Luo uses the leaves to create a silhouette effect by cutting. A pair of her leaf artworks features the solid dark shape of two couples, one hugging in the shade of a tree and the other with the couple gazing into each other’s eyes as they walk on grass hand in hand. The tooth-shaped lobes of leaves endow the artworks with a romantic quality.

Thinking outside of the box, Luo also sews on leaves. She chooses two sycamore leaves of different sizes — sycamore leaves are hardier than those from other trees — and gently wipes them clean before overlapping them, Luo then cuts a heart out of them. She threads a fine needle and deftly stitches the leaves together, sewing along the rim of the heart.

“It implies that two hearts are joined together,” said Luo. “I must be very careful while sewing because once something goes wrong, all the effort is in vain.”

Luo’s leaf artworks once traveled to Japan for exhibit, where they were much admired. Combining leaf art and paper art, her collaborative work with another artist named Zhou Nan won an environmental art award last year.

Leaves provide a plentiful supply of material. The tools required to turn them into are a brush, a knife, a needle and thread. Simple indeed. But the final works are truly amazing. Luo said anyone with perseverance and imagination can become a leaf artist.




 

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