Leaf carving, also known as cutting leaves, is made of natural fallen leaves that mature in autumn, and is carefully carved on the fallen leaves by hand to achieve exquisite patterns. Leaf carving is a very ancient art, there are historical records, there are early Western Zhou Dynasty leaf carving works.

This work is a well-known story for many people, according to the "Lü's Spring and Autumn Period" records, King Cheng and Shu Yu Yanju, aiding Wuye as Gui, and giving Shu Yu said: "Yu is a daughter (Ru) with this, and Shu Yu is happy to inform Zhou Gong...... So he was named Uncle Yu Yu Jin. This is the allusion of "cutting the tong and sealing the younger brother".

One day, King Zhou Cheng's younger brother Shu Yu and King Cheng were playing together, King Zhou Cheng picked a sycamore leaf and gave it to his younger brother Shu Yu, and said casually: "I will give this to you as a token!" After Shu Yu took the leaves, he was very happy, and then told Zhou Gong about it, Zhou Gong thought that the Son of Heaven was out of his word, and the horse was difficult to chase, if this matter was true, it would be not trivial, so he went to ask King Zhou Cheng, King Zhou Cheng said that he was just joking with his younger brother, Zhou Gong said seriously after hearing this: "The Son of Heaven has no jokes, the export becomes a constitution, and the history records that the musicians praise and the scholars praise." How can you just talk about it. King Cheng listened to Zhou Gong's reasonableness, so he had to seal Shu Yu in Tang, and later, Shu Yu's son moved the capital to the shore of Jin and changed Tang to Jin.

I also think that the method of becoming a king is a bit old-fashioned, it's a pitfall!

In the Han Dynasty, the art of leaf carving has been quite popular, and there are poems that describe the scene of the prevalence of folk leaf carving at that time: "The Han concubine hugged the baby in front of the window, and skillfully cut the paulownia leaves to shine on the window screen." "Women in the Han Dynasty played in front of the window with their children in their arms, and used sycamore leaves to cut into figures to decorate their lives - this means that the art of leaf cutting in the Yin and Han dynasties has been quite popular.

In the aesthetic principle of artistic creation, leaf carving has something in common with other arts, and has unique characteristics of leaf carving. Leaf carving has the expression of printmaking, miniature carving, paper-cutting and other arts, and absorbs the strengths of their creation to make up for their shortcomings. The difference lies in the fact that the leaf carving is the natural form of natural leaves, which is skillfully borrowed from nature and highlights the interest; Let nature show the scene of nature's ingenuity and the unity of heaven and man, and use the vertical and horizontal veins of the leaves and the natural defects to create the life state of the leaves, creating magical artistic moments, so that the works originate from nature and are higher than nature.

The steps of making leaf carving were a little different from what I thought, and I thought that I could just find a leaf and carve a painting on it with a knife, so after I failed to carve the 99th leaf, I went to find a craftsman in leaf carving according to the location mentioned by the master.

According to the master, he is too old to withstand the toss.

But in my opinion, the master is not a believer in evil and has a stick with the leaf carving, and he doesn't believe it in the old man, and he can't carve it without professional production technology.

Originally, I also insisted on the master's statement, but when I saw the tattered Peppa Pig painted in his hand, I immediately took a taxi to find the leaf carving expert!

When I arrived at the place, I followed the "experts" to visit some of the works, and listened to the experts tell some production background stories before I learned about the production technology.

The "expert" said: "Don't look at it as just a small leaf, after a few days and nights of long-term portrayal, you can present a vivid image and a historical story that catches your eye." ”

Just like this maple leaf, depicting the mother-in-law's tattoo, the whole withered yellow leaf has been skillfully carved out of a man kneeling down with his back and holding his hair in a bun, and behind this man there is a woman holding a thin needle as if she is writing something.

I looked at it and found that "Yue Fei" had four big characters written on his back: "Loyal to the country".

Seeing this scene, I couldn't help but sigh in my heart, the leaf carving is so magical, it can carve a historical story on a small leaf, and the characters and details depicted on it are vivid!

Master Ye Diao saw that I was surprised to be able to stuff a mouth the size of an egg, and smiled and introduced to me Yue Fei's Ye Diao works on the battlefield.

Looking at Yue Fei's vigorous and wanton posture on horseback in the leaves, I seemed to feel the scene of Yue Fei's victorious return from the battlefield, and I was particularly enthusiastic!

"Master, I also tried to carve on the leaves before I came, and I used fresh leaves, and all of them failed, either they were easy to crack or the leaves were too brittle and easy to break. I see that most of your works here are withered yellow fallen leaves, isn't that more brittle? ”

"These questions, when you see the production process, they will be white!"

The master patted me on the shoulder mysteriously and took me to see the production process, but I saw that the master didn't want to say anything, so I didn't continue to ask.

When it came to the production process, I was in vain, and it turned out that I had already made a mistake in the first step.

The master said that the leaves should be carefully selected, and then, the carefully selected leaves should be kneaded, pruned, hammered, soaked, dried, cut veins, grinded, ironed, bleached and other more than 60 processes before the leaf surface can be carved. When carving, there will be no cracking of the lines caused by the leaf veins, or the leaves are too brittle, and the leaves are slightly heavier and the leaves are broken, then the leaves will be wasted.

After these more than 60 processes, it takes 3 to 4 months to make a leaf carving that can be viewed and collected, with the addition of painting, micro-carving, paper-cutting, calligraphy, seal carving and other processes. This kind of elaborate leaf carving work is as thin as a cicada's wings, natural in color, resistant to acid, alkali and moisture, with yellow leaves but not brittle, and the tendons are curved and continuous.

Since it is carving, the knife method is the basis for creating leaf carving works, and it is a tool used to carve lines and express the theme.

The carving is also very particular, and it should be carried out in accordance with the principle of "first inside and then outside, first difficult and then easy". When carving, it is necessary to flexibly use the method and skill of the knife, so that the knife is powerful, the knife is smooth and round, and no line can be carved, otherwise the quality of the work will be affected.

Let's talk about the relatively simple manual sequences of material extraction, soaking, drying and pulse cutting in these 60 processes.

The natural fallen leaves that ripen in autumn are carefully carved by hand to create exquisite patterns.

That's why the difference between the works I see is that the leaves are dry yellow and the leaves I use are fresh.

Soaking: The collected leaves need to be softened and preservativeed with calcium propionate. First of all, put 10 grams of calcium propionate into 2-3 kg of water, stir well, and prepare the liquid medicine for later use. Then, the collected leaves should be cleaned with clean water first, and the curled leaves should be unfolded during the cleaning process, paying attention to the gentle action to avoid damaging the leaves.

Soak the washed leaves in calcium propionate solution for 2 hours, and pay attention to the soaking of the leaves. If the soaking time is too short, it will not achieve the purpose of antiseptic and insect prevention; The soaking time should not be too long, otherwise it is easy to cause the color to fall off, and even soak the leaves, which will affect the quality of future works.

Drying: Next, the soaked leaves are taken out, processed and flattened, and then dried. The specific method is to first lay the waste newspaper in a cool place, and then, put the leaves on the newspaper, dry it until there are no water droplets, carefully put it away, and then you can cut the pulse.

This drying is similar to the "mud dog" drying process mentioned earlier, which is dried in a cool place, rather than directly drying the water in the sun, because the leaves are the same as the soil, and they will easily crack and become brittle when they are dried in the sun after being wet. There is no way to move on to the next process.

Pulse cutting: In order to facilitate engraving, various types of blades should be cut for pulsing. The method is: use a cutter to flatten the raised leaf veins on the blade, and the petiole part should also be cut to be basically consistent with the thickness of the blade. After cutting the leaf veins, the leaves are placed on the newspaper, each layer of leaves is placed, and another layer of newspaper is placed on top, and after the leaves are placed, a thick glass plate is pressed on it, so that it can absorb water and flatten the leaves.

Then the follow-up process is carried out, and after all 60 processes have been successfully passed, the leaf can be used for carving.

You can paint directly on the leaf surface, that is, use the leaf as a base cloth, which should belong to the category of art.

You can also use a specific process to remove the mesophyll to become a reticulated leaf, and then paint a pattern, the process is relatively simple, but the picture has a sense of translucent and hazy, and the form is novel and unique.

The mother-in-law's tattoo I just saw belongs to the removal of mesophyll.

The third carving technique is to use the leaf vein as the shading, retain the mesophyll of the pattern part, and process the rest into a net, like the paper-cut (leaf) pasted on the leaf-like silk mesh, highlighting the unique vitality and natural artistry of the leaf vein. In particular, the effect of reflecting the light and delicate texture is very good, but the production process is more complex, and it takes a long time of speculation and research to master its production techniques.

These leaf carvings are not just a work of art, some of them are hollowed out as a whole, so they will be used as negatives, which are painted with paint and printed on paper, which is also a different flavor.

After learning about Ye Diao, I didn't make any extra stops, I wanted to take the meeting sent to me by Master Ye Diao back to show my stubborn and stubborn old man, professional things are still waiting for professional people to come, let him die to draw Peppa Pig's heart.