Photo via MondoGump.com, originally seen on TreeHugger.com. Original original? Leonardo da Vinci.

Today’s snow has us longing for fall, what with its cooler weather, pretty colors and cuter clothing. We’re also pretty pumped to gather up some leaves after seeing this!  For those of you out there with major artistic skills (I do not put myself in this category for the record), this is pretty incredible.

We spied this  new art form, called Leaf Carving on TreeHugger recently and though I’m sure I am sure I do not possess the artistic wherewithal to do it justice, it just looks so cool!

Perfected in China and practiced by the hands of skilled artisans, a knife is used to gently scrape away the delicate layers of fallen leaves all the way down to their transparent surfaces. Using what we’re guessing is equal parts patience and incredible skill, the artists tease amazing images from the leaves. A single leaf carving might take a month or more to complete.

Though we are in no means wishing for winter again while in the midst of the current one, once those leaves start dropping, rest assured we’re going to gather a few and give this a try. On a scale of one to impossible, we’ll guess this is beyond the higher side, but even a very simple image (like a heart) would be beautiful.