Tutorial on Making Original Leaves Dishes

It's winter on the calendar, and I want to take you back to summer.
I offer you this tutorial on creating an original gift for yourself or your dearest and nearest.
We are going to cast plaster and figure out how to make the casts beautiful and functional everyday objects.
For work, you need real live plant leaves. Different! And do not worry that the trees have lost foliage. There are also many indoor plants. And floral shops have large leaves for bouquets. In the extreme case you can always buy a cabbage or lettuce :)

Well, here we go. Ready?

So, choose the most beautiful and embossed leaves and lay them out with their back sides up. Do not confuse the sides! The back side has a more uneven surface with raised stripes.
In order not to make the leaf flat, I put a piece of foilit under it, shaping it as the leaf.

Now you can start mixing plaster. This will require the plaster and water, a mixing container, measuring cups or spoons and a sticks for mixing.

If you bought plaster in a pack, then please read the attached instructions. Perhaps, some additional recommendations will be there.

The proportion I usually use for mixing is 2 parts of water to 3 parts of plaster.

Prepare all beforehand — pour out water in the mixing container and the right amount of palster in a separate cup.

Knead the plaster. Very important — pour the plaster into the water, not vice versa! And stir quickly and thoroughly.

You have to work quick enough. Plaster for casting should be liquid. If it is too fluid, it will run away too fast from the prepared leaf. If it is too thick, it will be hard to level the surface well.
Pour the plaster right on the back side of the leaf, controlling that the plaster didn't pour over the edges. But if this happens, do not worry, all can be easily fixed. Smooth the plaster evenly across all surface of the leaf and leave it to dry.

This is very interesting, but at first, the plaster will start heating up, and you will feel it by touching. Then it will gradually begin to cool down and when it'll have cooled completely, you can continue the work. Of course an hour is not enough for the plaster to dry out. The thicker is the layer, the more time it needs. But you will be able to work in an hour and a half after casting.
Turn the leaf face-up, remove the foil and carefully begin to remove the green sheet from the plaster leaf. And here the magic begins!

Now you can see all stripes and folds of a live leaf! It is forever etched in plaster, and there'll never be the second alike. Typically, the leaf is very easily removed from the plaster cast. But if some pieces get stuck, you can later remove them when the cast dries out with a utility knife.

If you need to correct a corner of the leaf, it's easier to do this while the leaf is still wet — just carefully cut the excess with a knife. Or after drying just smooth the edges with sandpaper.

Since I had the back side very uneven, I leveled it with coating and perfected with sandpaper.

Then, to make the work not so fragile, I reinforced the leaf with a thin net form its back side having glued it with varnish.

After the lacquer dried out, I cut off all extra net and applied coating to the back of the leaf again.

I really wanted to make the back appealing. Do you remember that the back side is the face of a craftsman? So I decided to use a pattern to make an embossed ornament. After complete drying, the back can be processed once again with sandpaper. You could also stick a lace to the back side. It could both reinforce and decorate the leaf.

Now the cast is ready for painting. First, cover the leaves (I needed two leaves of different size for implementing my idea) with a layer of white primer and a layer of varnish.
Look how pretty they are now! They can even be not decorated any more.

But I kept on.

You can use acrylic paints for that diluted up to transparency with varnish or paints for glass. The paint should be fluid.
I wanted my leaves look as natural as possoble. So I used two colour tones. The first green and yellow shade for a pool.

And then, after complete drying of the first tone, paint the leaf more intensive green tone.

On the opposite side of the larger leaf, I stuck three glass legs to seerve as a base for my future composition. I stuck them with a transparent structural gel. After drying, it becomes completely transparent.

I drilled holes in both leaves and reinforced them with metal findings.

Well, after that the last thing remains — to fix the leaves on metal rods to make a two-tier candy or jewelry stand.
In the result, you have quite a unique thing! It will forever remain a piece of nature...

There are other variants of plaster casts applying.

Clock can be done, for example.

Or an ornamentation for a box.

Or just a base for a decorative panel.

I'm sure you can come up with something interesting.
Thank you for your interest in my work! I'm always waiting for you in my workshops.