|
|
Tricia
Legg is the webmaster for floralartmall.com and a keen floral artist.
Tricia is also editor of floral design magazine
In this capacity, she is fortunate enough,to see the work of many
of the world's most talented designers.
To enjoy the work of these gifted flower arrangers as Tricia
shares their work with you, subscribe to the inspirational monthly magazine with more lessons
here
In this lesson , she shares with you a project from a workshop she visited in March 2003.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Subscribe to online
magazine
|
|
    
A
BEGINNER'S LESSON. Decorate an egg with plant material for Easter or harvest
festival impact. Try it yourself using a polystrene shape as the base. Once
you have mastered the technique this skill can be used for adding plant
material to shoes, hats, bags, polystyrene shapes such as spheres, cones and wreaths and your own creative
pieces.
|
|
Byrta
Wagstaff, Dawn Davenport and Lois Montgomery of the Tauranga Floral
Art club in the Bay of Plenty New Zealand, ran a series of courses for beginners
in February and March 2003. I caught up with them as they showed the group
how to make covered eggs, using plant material. I couldn't wait to get home
and try it myself and share this lesson with you.
It certainly looked easy as the idea is simple. Take a polystyrene shape,
some glue (both available here) and leaves, and glue one onto the other in a uniform manner. Don't
be fooled! This little exercise takes planning, patience and perserverance!
Try it and you will then truly wonder at the ability of the artists featured
in the 'balls' article in the free magazine preview here
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
The planning comes first. You need to assemble all you need and have it handy. Polystyrene shapes are available here.Byrta
had given me 3 shapes, the size of small Easter eggs to practise with and
so the hunt began in the garden for leaves that were small, curved and old
enough not to collapse.
Cut the leaves off the branches and sort them into sizes.
The cold glue was opened. A tip here: open the tin and pour just a little
into an old lid.It sets very fast and the lid of the tin must be sealed very
quickly or it will all set solidly. Use a satay stick to put the glue
on the leaves. If you don't have cold glue use PVA instead.
Now start applying the leaves in layers from the top down. You can see in
the photo below, I didn't and had to start again. Of course by this time
the glue was tacky and started to stick to everything in sight. Just as well
the first attempt is always the worst!
|
It was
done. What do I recommend?
Go for a BIG shape first off, the flatter the
better! It is really important to select leaves or plant material of a size
appropriate for the shape, and do at least 4 eggs in a row...by the time you
have finished you will have the technique mastered.
If you use hot glue it
will turn the spot where the glue landed, a darker colour, a great effect
sometimes, a disappointment at other times.
|
Finally
with the leaves all layered and under control, I used the twisted spike
from a palm flower to decorate the egg. I used Ribbon for the second egg,and
tried outthe finished egg as decoration for a plate of real eggs I took to
a shared luncheon.(below)
|
|
Byrta
and the demonstrators in the class used lichen and moss to cover their examples,
with feathers around the outside and effect wire and ribbon.(right)
One of the class used cellophane (below left) tied with a bow, trimmed
with gold ribbon, and a posy of carnations on the side.
Below that you will see the 2 small eggs used by another beginner, covered
with Lambs' Ear leaves and pink material, set in a basket with a silk gerbera,a chicken,
grapes and tiny chocolates.
Below right is a basket with eggs covered in silver dollar gum leaves
and a larger green leaf, and bound with silver effect yarn.The basket also contains
a nest of beech twigs, nuts, cinnamay and chocolate eggs.
|
|
|
|
|
For books we recommend for beginners and novices to flower arranging and floral art, click here
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
