Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

After the background was complete, it was time to start creating the flowers.  The photo below shows my set up.  (BTW, I have my blog set up so you can always click on a photo for a larger view.)

My composition was on the left design wall, with my design cartoon on the right one.  I had all my flower fabrics arranged from orange/dark to pale yellow.  It was easy to see my options with them pinned directly to the design wall.

My process was to put a piece of yellow fabric on the wall, see through it to the part of the design already created, and draw a petal.  Then, I cut it and pinned it in place.

Did you catch the “see through it” part?  That’s not good!  Because of it, I knew I’d have to line all the yellow fabrics.  I wasn’t banking on that.  Since I was half way through the first flower before I decided to do this, I elected to line it all in one operation.

Using the see-through nature of the fabric to my advantage, I placed a large piece of fabric over the entire flower and drew the shape, with each petal indicated.  See below.

Then, I moved each petal to the new yellow fabric base and glued them in place.  See below. 

 Finally, I cut away the excess background fabric and put the flower back on the wall.

There was one unforseen advantage to all of this:  the flower now held together as a unit.  This allowed me to easily audition different arrangements as the design developed.  Plus, I didn’t need as many pins to control it.  (With subsequent flowers, I was smart enough to line each petal as I went.  But, again, I glued them all into units, so I could easily move each one.)

At this point, I was undecided on the color for the dark flower centers.  I decided to leave that decision until last.

I could tell that, indeed, the petals looked very similar to one another.  I began to think of ways to accentuate the differences.  Stitching?  Painted shadows???

All in all, though, I was very happy with it at this point.  What do you think?

Ellen Lindner