A wildflower study
Just before the fourth my friend Amanda, who owns and runs Hummingbird Gardens, announced that she had an extra large harvest for her weekly deliveries. Being that I'm continually inspired by what she's growing (I actually used her photos as a reference for my cosmos!), I arranged to get one of her gorgeous buckets of flowers that week.
Knowing that I'd most likely use these guys as research Amanda made sure to supply me with lots of quirky and colorful wildflowers like zinnias, marigolds, belles of Ireland, tithonia, strawflowers, cornflowers, and a few other things I can't even remember the names of right now! If you're a local business in Richmond, please check her out—she delivers flower buckets like these to businesses every week. Amazing!
Here are some shots of my stash before I started making a mess of things.
One of the ways I've developed and continue to hone my paper flower-making skills is by getting my hands on as many different types of flowers as I can, and then I try to see if I can figure out how to recreate them.
Since I'd planned a little down time over the holiday weekend, I picked out a few of my favorites from this awesome supply and thought I'd see what I could do.
Overall, I'm excited about how things turned out! I don't know what the yellow flower is (I'll see if Amanda can tell me), but I couldn't quite get the ruffles right on that one and still match the color with the paper I had in stock. I wanted the brightness of that yellow so I opted for color over texture and used a doublette crepe instead of a lighter weight that probably would have worked a little better. I also pre-stretched the crepe I used on the mauvy zinnias and overworked the paper to try to get that color to match a bit better. That ended up working well, and I love the disheveled look of those two blooms—they're probably my favorite out of the whole bunch.
I tried to take some photos before the live versions started looking so sad, but the tithonia had to go before I was ready.
Since I usually gravitate towards arrangements that are much more refined and filled out, I'm surprised by how much I like this one. But it works for me! I may end up listing it for sale, but for now, it's a refreshing change of pace in my studio.
Let me know what you think, or better yet, if there are any flowers you'd like to see me try next.
