Thursday, March 14, 2013

Thursday Theme: Flora


Another thing that Spring makes me appreciate more, besides sunlight and light colors, is flowers.  In the Fall and early Winter, I tend to focus more on trees and foliage and such.  By the end of Winter, though, I just want to see some damn flowers.  That's why I love daffodils so much.  Along with crocuses, they're the first ones I get to see.  And, as with most things that I like, flowers end up in my art.

I started early with the flowers this season.  That's because I had a Christmas project I wanted to do, which never came to fruition but I'm going to try and have it done for this coming Christmas.  For this project, I started sketching roses from Michelle Ward's photos of her garden.


Thank you to Michelle for letting me use her photos as models.

Another flower that tends to inspire me around this time of year is the cherry blossom.  So when I saw these Prima flowers I had to have them, because while they're not exact, they're reminiscent of cherry blossoms to me.  This little banner made its way onto a birthday card which I won't show because it's about 2 weeks late at this point so I don't want to spoil it for the recipient, because I still plan to mail it...

There's a lot I want to do with floral motifs.  I'm slowly accumulating, with Mom's help, the botanical stamp designs from Stampendous.  I want to do a series of ATCs with them a lot like my unicorn from last year.  But I also have these to play with:

Cocktail napkins!  Mom uses these all the time, so I'm going to play with them now too.

And last night, I was at a craft night with my dance friends, and I sketched what was going to be a collection of fantasy flowers designed to look like stylized musical instruments but the first one didn't really turn out that way so I just gave him some tiny friends and a surrounding of moss.

Not my best, but it was fun.

If I can find the time and the right inspiration, I might enter Tim Holtz's Tattered Floral Challenge.  I'm even considering working ribbon flowers into the dance costume my mom and I are working on for my recital coming up.  We'll see.  But I do find myself wanting to wear flowers, look at flowers, smell flowers, and just be around flowers.  I'm even drinking flowers.
It's delicious!  I love floral teas.

Do you get flower fever?  Where have you been working flowers in?  Do you have a favorite?

2 comments:

Maryanne said...

Well, as you know, my favorite motif for anything is flowers! I love your drawings. I think the fantasy flower is beautiful. I love the moss and small flowers at the base. Wait until you see the tag I made with the daffodil napkin background! I love it! I also love what you did with the cherry blossoms and the burlap. Cool!

Diana Taylor said...

Your garland is simply gorgeous - I love spring flowers and they look so good above your fireplace. I have a collection of paper napkins that I have meant to use in art but apart from cutting out a seagull I tend to forget I have them as they are hidden away in a box. Yours are so pretty and I am now determined to find mine and do something with them!
I love the drawings - very delicate and lovely shading and I especially love the little mushroom at the base of the fantasy flower - very you!
There's only one thing I have to disagree with you on and that's flavoured tea - I can't stand it! I can tolerate Rosehip but that's about it - although I do love the different boxes it comes in - they always look so pretty and tempting on the supermarket shelves!