2020 Summer of Scenery - Part 8: [tea] leaves

There are several videos out there on making flock from sawdust but I don't have any sawdust to hand.  On the other hand, I do have lots of old dried tea-leaves saved with scenery in mind.  I've used them as ground cover in forest scenery (what better to represent dried dead leaves than... dried leaves?) and have a large supply.

Tea leaves

Ingredients and materials / tools

The naturally dark brown colour of the leaves means you may need more paint than you would with sawdust, but the exact quantity always varies depending upon what sort of paint you're using anyway.  I've used acrylic craft paint as the base colour then added yellow and light green emulsion.  The batch pictured below also included a bit of white to try and produce a lighter batch than a previous lot I made.

Green and white paint to start.

Doesn't look much to start...

The paint is rubbed through the tea leaves.  It looks fairly awful to start but you need to persevere for a minute or two until the colour is evenly distributed and any sticky clumps are broken up.

Needs more green.

Getting there.

Could do with being lighter & more yellow.

Just a little bit of each.

That looks good.

Pour it out to dry in the sun.

 It seems to work pretty well when sprinkled on around foam flock, helping blend it into the base.

Tea-leaf flock in use.