Pressed Flowers

OK, I have now attended my first flower-pressing group - or actually it is a crafts group that makes greeting cards (two-dimensional art work) using pressed flowers. (Everyone gathers and presses their own flowers at home, and then brings them to the group meeting.)

Originally I had thought that such a crafts-person would simply place one pressed flower, complete with its foliage, in the center of the blank card, and then do the final touches by affixing it to the card with the provided clear contact paper. "Voila."

But no, these artisans often separate the petals and then press them, so that many more varieties of artwork are possible: many more slants on composition, color combination, and contrast are presented, as was evident to me today by their cards. They also press varieties of foliage from weeds, shrubs, flowers, bouquets in-a-vase, ferns, leaves, etc.

They even gave me a huge gazania flower-head from which to remove the petals and press in my very own telephone book at home, plus a likewise dissected chrysanthemum ! Here goes!

Pressed Flowers

I've been invited to join a charity group which makes greeting cards with pressed flowers.

Now, this is no attempt at fine art.

However I have to expound on how I used to make greeting cards with pressed flowers some 40 years ago, all on my own. I remember during a drought in northern California I scavenged for lupines and wild sweet peas, because nothing much else was blossoming. Here and now in the desert we have the Mexican Firebird, which everyone knows, blooms all summer long and well into the fall. I am sneaking peeks already at these colorful shrubs in the wild, where I would hopefully not be apprehended for accosting the landscape.......these beautiful flowers must somehow find their way into the pages of my flower-pressing telephone book......

The result will be 2-dimensional pressed flower greeting cards, with matching envelopes, though I have yet to attend my first meeting! .....

Primitive Interior

We're going to go on a little tourist attraction today: about 20 minutes from where I live in southeastern Arizona there is a large Spanish Mission from the 1600's, San Xavier Mission which, you guessed it, is chock full of ancient paintings done on the interior walls, throughout.

Its location is just south of Tucson on Interstate 19, off the road about a half-mile: you can easily see its inspiring spires from the Freeway.

From the outside San Xavier architecturally resembles any other gorgeous Spanish Mission (and very well kept up), all in white, with the arches and the domes, and the steeples, and the palm trees and cactuses, but it's the interior walls that present today's 2-dimensional subject.

All this artwork is like decoration, in the sense that all the painted lines run into each other, and all pictures, and designs, and borders are juxtaposed, one thing right next to another, from the interior top of the domes and steeples, down to the floor, and also on the walls from side to side. (It is a huge photo-op!) It actually reminds me of being inside a wedding cake, with all the cake decorations somehow projected onto the retinas of my eyes.....

Sunshine!

Suppose we apply "borders" and "2-dimensional" but leave the rectangular item for a while.

If we go the craft realm we could look at say, a round or oval shape; for example: a plate.

This morning in my ceramics studio I moved from my customary ceramic square tile, to a circular plate which I wanted to decorate by applying glazes, with brushes and sponges. It's really not fudging to say that it is virtually a 2-dimensional format.

Around the round edges, of course, a plate gives one the opportunity to choose from among a myriad of borders. Withe the help of a couple of artsy-craftsy stencils I sponged patterns around the border of the plate, interspersed with the word "Believe", which is one of those current catchwords that seems to be popular at the moment, and it suited my fancy. And in the center of the plate one can paint a vignette, or a landscape, or perhaps a sunshine face, which is what I did. Now it's ready for the fire, and here's hoping it turns out sunshiney!

Posters

We see posters in store windows, stapled to lamp-posts, tacked up on bulletin boards, put up in libraries and living rooms, taped to to walls and windows (providing of course we are not talking about flyers!) published in books, and occasionally we see excellent posters framed and exhibited.

Posters are of course a 2-dimensional medium, and rarely is it, that a poster has not been reproduced in multiple numbers. This is not a one-of-a-kind art form.

Posters have a particular beauty in that they 'most always combine a picture, an illustration, a painting, or a photograph, with text of some description. Script. A Font. A Hand. An Alphabet. Calligraphy. This text can run right across the picture, or placed at the top, or there at the bottom, and in various sizes and/or colors, depending on the impact desired. This is not a medium that is rarely seen, nor which requires the viewer to enter a museum to see.

However the most charming posters - the originals - are only visible in the museums, and were done by Toulouse LaTrec during the middle of the 19th century, I believe it was in France: all his lettering was filled in and done by hand, and has a lovely elegant quality.