Saturday, October 22, 2011

More design discussions


The following are some designs that we worked on at our first meeting, last week.




Here is Beverly M's piece.  We discussed the open and closed silhouette by using the thistles she has in the topmost part of her design.  An "open silhouette" has space between the floral components, allowing air or fingers to pass through.  A "closed silhouette" has the thistles bunched together as a basic group, allowing nothing to pass through.  We felt the bowl was too wide across for the size of the design and so we lifted the thistles up towards the left a little and made the design taller.  Then it was balanced with the bowl.  We also commented that we could turn the bowl upside down and have the smaller base toward the design.


This is Deana's other piece.  We really liked the leaves and the container and wood.  The protea was too big for the design and all the weight of the design was on the right side.  We played with turning the wooden branch around and putting the pokey out branch on the left and that helped a great deal.  If we simply removed the wooden branch entirely the top of the container was left open to the eye.  I think those leaves are sycamores but I'm not sure and I'll find out from Deana.  They were really gorgeous.

Liz G made this gorgeous fall centerpiece.  It has persimmons and dried wood as the components.  The photo picks up the persimmons really well but in real life they are very pale next to the wood and didn't show up well at all.  We felt that if they were red or pomegranates they would have a much larger visual impact and carry the wooden base very well.  Then we turned the base around and saw a totally new side of the piece with a knot in it and that helped offer visual presence too.


This is Mary B's terrific design.  Can you tell she has worked for a florist?  We commented that she had great plastic manipulation and abstraction in her clipped palm frond and in the rolled variegated ginger in the front.  The ginger, in real life, was overpowering the rest of the design and there were holes in the center going up to the grasses.  We recommended that she split the ginger leaf to make it smaller and re-position it to fill the spaces in the center.  Then we had a discussion about zots and how wonderful they are.  So she redid her ginger and next time I will have the after photos as well.


This is Joanne's miniature or maybe small.  We got the Handbook out to verify the size and the rules for a Miniature and a Small Design and we measured her design and it was 5 inches.  A Miniature Design may not exceed 5 inches in height, width or depth.  The background is considered "staging" and must be "in pleasing proportion to a five inch maximum design."  A Small Design may not exceed 8" in height, width or depth.   All other rules of Miniature apply to Small with the substitution of 8" for 5".  Her container is cinnamon sticks and her floral material is statice.  She brought several other colors of background cardstock and we had a great discussion on the importance of picking the right colors for your background and underlay.  It can sink or swim your design.

No comments:

Post a Comment