I’ve never been one to abide well with blank walls, so these last ten months in the rented room have been atypical. But the lack of much to look at (other than the Creature from the Black Lagoon and his companions Marshmallow the plushy llama and Gold Dragon) have been a bit dull. So I decided to create a floral wreath that I could hang with those no-damage hooks.
I went out to the local Michael’s art supply store to get the styrofoam ring and a mix of silk flowers. I also wanted some greens as a base.
I had gone in thinking I would be creating an asymmetrical design, and that I wanted to feature the color yellow. The small white daisies were chosen as filler, and the white & yellow narcissus blossoms to give a little variance to the strong yellow of the narcissus flowers on the far left. I wanted a rose as a feature, with a counter-color, and the pinky-peach of this one appealed to me. (If I’d been able to find individual stems of purple pansies, I’d have chose those, but the only ones in the store were “planted” in a hanging basket, which put them outside the budget.)
As I was hunting for the ribbon to use, I ran across these butterfly accents and decided to throw in the dashes of blue.
When I started, the greens went in first.
Although the stems have a bendable wire core, I realized these would have to be tied down to keep them in place.
I ended up using black thread, but wasn’t really comfortable with that. If I do a project like this again, I’ll find some fine wire to use instead. But the thread worked out all right.
I then moved on to adding the wild daisies. The seemingly bare spot on the lower left at 7 o’clock is intentional, since the plan was to add a bow or streamers at that point at the end of the process.
Next up was placing the rose blooms.
After that, I added the yellow narcissus to the right side.
The left side got added.
Then I added the white & yellow narcissus to the mix, to give a little bit more variety to the spread of color.
The wreath was finished off with adding the butterflies and the streamers. The butterflies were placed so they would be “chanced upon” when looking at the wreath, rather than being shown off. And the streamers, placed off-center to the left and dangling down well below the wreath, are intended to give a compositional counter-weight to the roses.
Once I hung it on the wall, I was very satisfied with the results. It’s the first such wreath I’ve ever really attempted (though long ago, I used to do Advent arrangements). I may do more in the future, perhaps as gifts, maybe even as art commissions.
UPDATE (12 May 2020): Alas, the Spring Wreath got destroyed during the move from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. So these photos are the only record of it now. But it gave me much pleasure while I had it.
