By Joel Wells

On Sept. 21, 2024, JCMG veteran Chris Sedrel taught a group of master gardeners to make concrete leaf castings. I brought a leaf from one of our giant hostas (at right). A small, many-leafed plant was placed on the side of the hosta’s leaf to add interest and contrast. The class was very informative and after taking my concrete leaf casting home, I decided to paint it.

The painting materials are relatively inexpensive. I bought the colored paint from JoAnn Fabric in Iowa City Marketplace (formerly the Sycamore Mall) for around $2 a bottle and the black exterior paint from ReStore for $2. Several very good YouTube videos demonstrate ideas on how to paint concrete/cement leaves and illustrate finished examples. It was fun to do and painting it made a world of difference in the finished project. I would encourage anyone to try it – even if you screw it up, you can just paint over it and try again.

Step 1: The concrete leaf was first painted with two coats of black exterior paint for concrete. Next, the small plant was outlined in acrylic green paint.

Step 2: A brown color was tried to highlight the bigger hosta leaf, but it was not satisfactory.

Step 3: Then a purple color was mixed with black to get the deep purple color. That was a little too dark, so a lighter purple was painted along the edges.

Step 4: It was then covered with silver sprinkles, and finally it was finished with a protective coating.