Lessons Learned

I now have a very firm understanding of why you shouldn't use fresh flowers in resin. I have two delightful carnation bud designs that I neglected to even seal with Mod Podge, let alone allow to dry. They were beautiful, soft pink and took the resin wonderfully. But then they started to change. They are becoming a muddy, sickly color. The leaves and stems are starting to develop black spots. Overall, they turned from delightful to horrendous.

 The greens went from vibrant and spring-like to pale and sickly. The pink was soft and sweet, now it's muddy and rotten.



But, the design and layout is still one of my favorites. I love the cluster of flowers from large to small, finishing with tiny, unopened buds. The resin coated the flowers wonderfully. A nice, even coat that isn't too thin so the flowers don't break.                                                                 The second necklace is smaller, with just four buds, but there is still a nice variation in size and bloom. There must have been just enough air and moisture to allow the flowers to begin to rot. It is an interesting study in decay, however.

Once I get my hands on another bunch of buds I will definitely try this design again. I will continue my quest to find a way to dry and seal the flowers so I can preserve their form at their peak.

So, let this be a lesson to anyone who wants to cover flowers in resin. Drying them and sealing them is not optional. Unless you like muddy gross flowers that were formally gorgeous. 

Floriography

I know, I know, I'm terrible about updating. I think I need to set an alarm to remind me to post about what I'm working on.
I've been practicing bead embroidery, and learning how to use a beading loom. I'm taking a small break from resin, and feeling the itch to work with polymer clay again. Right now, however, I'm exercising the painter in me. I'm working on a series of sympathy cards featuring flowers typically used in funeral arrangements with their associated Victorian floriography meanings.

Starting with flower picture references, I drew pencil sketches on tracing paper and transferred them to watercolor paper. The tracing paper sketches will also make them easier to transfer them to fabric for embroidery, if I decide to go that route. Next, I painted the flowers in watercolors. One personal quirk with my painting is that I typically use only one or two small brushes for an entire painting. After all the flowers were painted and dry, I scanned them into the computer with as high a resolution as the scanner would let me, since I intend to have them printed.

This is the scanned in, very rough painted yarrow flower. The yarrow was the last one I drew, and I really didn't want to draw the individual little buds in the yellow part. It's placement in the bottom corner of the page rather than centered is so I can add in text. My handwriting is not the neatest or prettiest, so I prefer typed text. I am using a font called Bilbo, found on FontSquirrel.com. Font Squirrel is my favorite source for fun fonts that are available for commercial use. (this is not an ad for Font Squirrel, I just really like them and think it's a good resource for anyone else looking for awesome fonts)

In floriography, yarrow means undying love. While it's not typically used in flower arrangements, that I've seen anyway, it is still a pretty and meaningful little herb.

I use GIMP 2 for image manipulation and digital painting. It's a very nice free alternative to Photoshop. (also not an ad) I cleaned up the background, added a bit of color and outlining, and inserted the text.

I even found a nifty brush that gave me little circles so I didn't have to hand draw the individual flower buds.

Currently, I have 12 flowers painted, and ready to be worked on in GIMP, including the yarrow.

I am working on a carnation next, then a mum, a rose, orchids, azaleas, gladioli, irises, stargazer lilies, juniper, rosemary and tarragon.