pastel rubbings

When I first grew elecampane I had no idea how big the leaves would get.  I was enchanted with this and everything else about the plant.  In the ensuing decade the huge leaves have continued to fascinate me.  Last year I wanted to print some with paint but the job seemed too cumbersome to be fun for just one person. 



This year I planned to ask my husband to help me with a printing sample.  In the interim, I read a comment Jude left concerning a printed leaf collage I'd shared with her.  She said the collage inspired her to make some leaf rubbings.  And the big duh lightbulb went off in my head.  It would be simple enough to take a rubbing from an elecampane leaf.  All I needed was the leaf and a larger workspace.



I commandeered the dining room table for my efforts - working with oil pastels and a neutral print that I felt would add a bit of underlying texture to the rubbing.  I made two prints





This experiment took place in mid-July.   It's taken this long for the oil to dry enough to be handled without smudging.   Not sure what I'm going to "do" with them yet but I do like them enough to plan on making a few more rubbings in addition to some prints.

Comments

[jude]

hey these are great, soooo big, you could use part of them and not even know it was a leaf. monster leaves,wow. gotta get back to mine....i started some a while ago....

[Acey]

Jude - for years when I looked at them in the yard I would think of them as if they were dinosaur bones - mysterious and awe inspiring fragments of some different world on a larger scale ...