COMPOSITION - Arranging flowers for still life painting

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Description - Part 1: Step by step description for making your own arrangement from store-bought cut flowers.

CHOOSING YOUR FLOWER:

It can be quite daunting standing in the cooler of your grocery store, wondering what flowers you should pick. The dizzying array of colors & scents throws me into a tizzy and I forget every single thing I had in mind and just start randomly grabbing flowers like a kid in a candy store with 3 weeks’ allowance in her pocket.

I don’t really recommend that approach.

Having a plan in mind before you go can help immensely. Helps to write it down, too, so that you have parameters in which to work, and you don’t lose your mind when all your senses are assaulted.

So – what kind of flowers do you buy? It depends on what you’re shooting for.

If you are going for a traditional or classical look, you want to look for flowers like roses, peonies, lilies, carnations, mums, daffodils, hydrangea, or garden roses.

If you want something more contemporary, choose specimens such as calla lilies, bird of paradise, tulips, orchids, or anthurium.

Your choices will be somewhat limited in a grocery store (for instance, I’ve never seen peonies for sale in a grocery store) but, that makes your choice easier, not harder.

 

CHOOSING COLORS:

Assuming that, as an artist, you know basic principles of color and design – you can apply those same principles to your flower arrangement.

Choose monochromatic flowers for elegance, visual harmony, simplicity and drama.

Choose analogous colors for pleasing harmonious color transitions – start with one primary color and choose the colors to either side of the color wheel – shooting for a full 90º wedge.

Choose complimentary colors for a bold powerful statement, but let one be dominant over the other.

Go for split complimentary colors for more variety and interest.

Triadic or polychromatic would be the most vibrant of your choices – and also – not surprisingly, the most difficult arrangements to pull off successfully.

 

CHOOSING YOUR VASE OR CONTAINER:

Here’s my beginning collection of vases. I buy them from garage sales and thrift stores, and the glass ones are from arrangements I’ve either bought or that have been given to me. I have a Nantucket basket that I use quite often, since my gallery loves flowers in the basket.

What vase you choose depends on a couple factors – the first being what type of arrangement you have chosen. Consider your target market – are you painting for a contemporary gallery? Then choose a high design vase and a modern arrangement.

For something more traditional, stick with glass, crystal, baskets, or even urns.

The second consideration is the type of flowers you are using. How big are the blossoms? Consider balance – if you have large blossoms like garden roses, or big tall flowers like gladiolas, you need a substantial vase to hold those. If you have a bunch of tiny button mums, you’ll want to use a tiny vase. What colors have you chosen? A wildly colored arrangement should probably go in a clear or plain solid vase, and a monochromatic one could stand a more colorful vessel.

Flowers need not be in a vase. Consider other containers like baskets, pitchers, tea pots, and cookie jars. The possibilities are endless, and limited only by your imagination.

 

CREATING YOUR ARRANGEMENT:

Let me just start by saying that I think floral design is not easy. Some people have a knack for it, and some don’t. I’m pretty much in the some don’t category, so for me, it was a struggle to learn. (I’m still working on it.)

While you’re learning – be prepared to ruin a lot of flowers. Buy cheap ones to start, so you don’t wind up in the poorhouse while you’re figuring this all out.

Some basic tools you need:

• Loose cut flowers from the market.
• A vase.
• Flower shears.
• A Frog (A little weighted gadget that sits in the bottom of the vase – it has sharp spikes that you stick the flowers into, to hold them in position.) or
• Oasis (green floral foam that you can insert in an opaque vase that serves the same purpose as the frog)
• Packet of Preservative.
• Girl Scout Thin Mints. (For real! I’ll explain later…)

I chose a monochromatic color scheme, and decided to use my great, great, great grandmother’s antique handmade stained glass vase. This composition is ALL ABOUT the vase.

(Okay, fine! I bought it at Target!)

Using cool water, pour in the flower food. It’s for flower power. If you’re painting from life, you don’t want these bad boys to die on you too soon. (Here’s an interesting aside - my new florist calls all flowers “little guys”. Who knew they were all male?)

Next, place your frog in the bottom of the vase. If you’re using an opaque vase, you can use oasis.

Now, elevate your vase to eye level (or whatever vantage point you plan to paint from).

Remove leaves that will be below the water line, measure, cut and then stick your first stem down onto the frog. This is your highest element. The rule of thumb is that the height of the flowers above the vase should be at least equal to (or greater than) the height of the vase.

Measure, cut and place some green filler. Start to think about the overall shape of your composition – do you want a classic triangle, an asymmetrical shape, or something low slung and sprawling?

Continue cutting and placing stems, filling in where needed. Try to group flowers, while considering the flow – the path your eye will take through the composition. Cluster your values together, as well.

Now start placing more of your focal flowers. Think about your negative space – you don’t want to fill every spot with a flower.

Once your focal flowers are placed, fill in the rest of the smaller flowers and greenery. I really like an asymmetrical composition, so I try to have the highest element offset from center, and then have some draping elements on the opposite side.

Now this is the most important part – once you’re done – bust out the THIN MINTS.

Eat, and enjoy a job well done.

 

Finally, set up your flowers next to your easel, point a light on it, and start painting!

I think my great, great, great grandmother would be proud.

 

SIMPLIFY THINGS:

An easier and faster way to arrange your flowers is to choose a ready-made store-bought bouquet. From the cooler at the grocery store, sometimes you can get lucky and can find some really pretty combinations.

I chose a romantic pink & white combo. I bought a couple extra pink carnations and some extra baby’s breath, to flesh out the composition, if needed.

Remove flowers from the package, and spread them out on a flat surface. Since this is for a painting and not for your table, it doesn’t really matter what the backside looks like, so you can do your arranging from one side only.

Beginning from the back, and the highest point of your arrangement, start placing flowers back together. Again, group your flowers, considering the overall shape, the negative spaces, and the inner flow of colors & texture.

Keep stacking flowers – or inserting them underneath what you’ve already placed, until you have the whole bunch put back together.

The finished stack. This one wound up as a triangle shape.

Lay the vase you will use next to the stack of flowers to measure where you’ll cut – remembering the rule of twice the height.

Holding the bunch under running water, cut your stems at an angle. Cut flowers under water in order to prevent an air pocket from forming, which keeps the flower from absorbing water & nutrients.

Plop the bunch in your vase of clean water with preservative added, then push, pull, twist, and poke, prod, and fuss until you get it right. (This part – you’re pretty much on your own. Good luck!)

Here’s the finished arrangement –lighted and ready to paint. (Oh - don’t forget your Thin Mint!)

Sometimes… things don’t go the way you planned.

Don’t be afraid to cut your losses. Here’s an example of an arrangement going south on me, and what I did to try to salvage it. These were separate flowers I bought to go together – cream roses, peachy-orange gerbera daisies, and green button mums.

Version 1 – Blech.

Version 2 – A bit better, but not so much.

And finally, version 3 (I gave up at this point – this one’s not half-bad.)

Here’s another example of an arrangement done from bouquets from the grocery store.

And the resultant painting: Daisies and Black-Eyed Susans

TIPS:

• Keep your vases CLEAN. Scrub that nasty scummy stuff from the side of the vase that’s left over from your last arrangement. Bacteria is not your flower’s friend.
• Use cold water to slow development of your flowers – warm water facilitates opening of buds.
• Flowers are not as delicate as you may think. Don’t be afraid to manipulate them – remove petals you don’t like, open flowers that aren’t quite there yet, or gently bend their stems to orient them the way you want.
• You know those little packets of preservative that come with your flowers? Use them. It’s food – and if you’re painting your flowers from life, you really do want to prolong the life of your subject.
• When your flowers start to look a little wilted or tired – take them out – cut the stem a bit under running water – remove a bit of foliage, and put it in a smaller vase.
• Always avoid getting water on the blossoms, to discourage rot.
• Try to bunch your flowers together in odd numbers.
• Tulips don’t like being with other flowers – they’re sort of like those fighting fish – they’ll kill any other flower that tries to get in the vase with them .

NEXT – Part 2: How to get an artistic flower arrangement out of your florist.