Tag Archives: Lily

day six – basic floral design I at longwood – last day of basic!

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There was overlap with Advanced and Basic this past week.  But this was the last Basic class, boo hoo! I never wanted it to end.   In today’s class we reviewed the principles and elements of design, and then did 2 arrangements.  The first was a simple market bouquet in glass, taken apart and re-designed with added greens and a few extra flowers.  I think we’ve all had experience with this- you bring home a bouquet from the grocery store and you can’t just stick it into a vase “as-is.” You need to break all the stems into groups and analyze what you have.  Often the bouquet from the market has the different flowers placed in a very regular pattern all around – but maybe you’d like it better and there would be more impact if some of the flowers were grouped together.  This was quick and easy but important as it was our first design in glass with water – no Oasis!  So how will the stems stay in place? We had a few options for the mechanics – the first was to create a grid out of clear tape, creating 1″ holes on a dry vase and running tape all around the rim once finished.

clear tape grid method for designing in glass

The second, and the one I went for as it would create interest in the lower half of the arrangement, was the branch structure with willow.  Wrap a stem of curly willow around your hand and smush it into the glass, adding a few big stems in a criss cross pattern for more support, and 2-4 more wrapped stems as needed. You could use any other flexible stems for this, like red stemmed dogwood for example.  Just make sure they’re pretty bendy.

using natural stems to create supporting mechanic for arrangement

Personally I know I will use this method again, it was really easy to work with – the stems stayed put – and I really liked the way it looked especially after you put water into the design.  Of course there are many other ways to support stems in water – by using kenzans/frogs/pin holders, or using foliage or large flowers at the base to keep other flowers stable.

my market bouquet in glass - curly willow added last to reflect the basing stems

isn't this tulip delicious?

branch structure looks even cooler when you add water!

Next up, the one flower/one foliage stem design in glass.  We were given a glass cylinder vase and a quick demo from instructor Jane on some unique things you can do to various foliage stems to create drama.  Here she’s wired Equisetum to get it to conform to the shape she wants – a long rectangle – that will contain the single lily flower like a frame.   She’s also revealed a very important trick of the trade – called U-Glu dashes which are tiny dots of clear tacky glue that can help stems stay put and so much more.

Jane explaining that the level of the water is part of the design

In a flower show competition, none of the mechanics should be visible unless they are purposefully part of the design, like using bind wire repetitively around a wrapped stem.  As she’s doing her demo, I already have an idea for what I want to do, using Phormium or Flax, and one single Anthurium.   And because the practice of sketching has been pressed into my brain from the Advanced class, I do a quick sketch of a possible arrangement.

my sketch idea for the one flower/one leaf design

Of course, once you start working with the plant material, it might tell you it wants to do something else, which it did in my design.  First I wound the phormium leaf in a spiral around my hand, and sunk it into the container.  I fussed with the spacing and at the top used a bit of U-Glu to adhere it to the vase.  Then, I tried wiring the anthurium because I wanted to to be taller and I wanted to play with it’s form, but that was harder than it looked and I couldn’t get the wire all the way up the stem, so to disguise the wire sticking out at the bottom, I wrapped another phormium leaf around the stem and then bound the whole thing with bind wire in a hopefully decorative way.

bind wire holds the anthurium stem inside the phormium leaf

my one flower/one leaf design after i got it home - had to rejigger things a bit

What was so amazing about this class was again the hugely varied results given that we all had similar material to work with, and all the same vase.  Jane gave us big kudos and we all felt very good about ourselves!

Jane lined up all our designs and had fun playing flower show judge

here all the lily designs are grouped together, giving us the idea that you could create sets of these designs for an event - getting a lot of 'bang for your buck'

this very simple design using a mum and an aralia leaf reminds me of a lotus

one tulip, poked through a flax leaf. i also loved jenny's design using willow and a tulip but didn't get a good pic. sorry!

Mary Jo always has a smile! Love what she did with her flax leaf.

I will miss all the great students of this class! Hope to see you in Basic II in the fall. And thanks, Jane, for getting me hooked on Floral Design.

day four – basic floral design I at longwood

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My parallel design (photo courtesy of hugh and juliet)

Today’s lesson was to create a Parallel Design, a design that’s meant to have a calming effect.  In a regular decorative design, like the Roundy Moundy, the overall shape is dominant. But in a formal linear design, the forms and lines are dominant.  The lines in this design are created by grouped plant material set in a vertical pattern with negative space between each section.  The negative or empty spaces allow the eye to travel through the arrangements.  We talked about parallel designs with Landscape Designs, but this one is different because we are not mimicking how you’d see plants in nature, and we’re not necessarily combining plants that are seasonally compatible.  In other words, let her rip!

Oasis fit to edge of container, covered by Apidistra leaf and "terracing" with Galax leaves

We started by filling a low container with Oasis floral foam, shaved to the lip of the container (important for a clean line, clean look.)  Nothing much should be hanging over the edges in the parallel design.   Jane recommends attaching an Apidistra leaf with greening pins to cover up the foam at this stage, rather than going back and filling in with moss at the end.  (Some stems will poke right through the leaf, whereas a hole will have to be made for other, more tender ones.)  We’ll be using a lot of basing techniques at the end to conceal the mechanics, but the terracing using Galax leaves is easier to do at the beginning.  Terracing is simply placing materials on top of one another, divided by space, like a staircase.

We get our materials for class from Delaware Valley Wholesale. Doesn't Jane look nice today?

Linear plant material is a must for this design, and we had lots to choose from, like gladiola, liatris, and equisetum.  Hold the line flowers/foliage up over the design to see where it looks best, and vary the heights.  The idea is to keep the same plant material grouped together for a bigger impact and to keep the lines stronger. They should all be placed in as straight as possible!  With lilies in the mix, the only way to go was to keep them low or they took up too much of the space at the top of the design – reserved for negative space.

Design in yellows and whites - very restful

Depth is created by angling stems, overlapping materials, and the use of color (light colors pop out while darker ones recede.)  The lines create negative and positive space.

Afeefa's Design - powerful color choices

Notice how Pat trimmed her Equisetum on a diagonal cut for effect (sorry Pat I didn't get the bottom of your design!)

Next, we did our basing techniques to cover the mechanics and to create color and texture.   Pillowing is creating a tight, round pillow out of a few stems placed radially.  Tufting uses bunches of short stems to create an airy look.   Pavé-ing is a tight clustering technique where the surface of the bunches remains totally flat, creating a cobblestone effect. (Pavé as in the jewelry technique, too.)

Jeny's Design to show basing techniques

class critique - don't worry, we all get As here (Melissa's design up close, I think)

This design really opened my eyes to the possibilities of parallelism.  I think these would make great table centerpieces because you can see through them easily and they look good from all sides.  You create a little mini world in a box that has nothing to do with the way plants would really be growing and it’s kind of liberating.  Also, it’s been said that men prefer these vertical designs.

my design in home environment (photo courtesy of hugh and juliet)

(photo courtesy of hugh and juliet)