Making the Ephemeral Last

MAKING THE EPHEMERAL LAST

BY ALICIA SCHULTZ

Flowers are nature’s form of art: the vibrant and soft colours, the beautiful lines, the imperfections. Yet, their beauty is fleeting. They take your breath away only to fade a short time later. They are temporary, and once a particular type of flower has finished blooming, you wait another year to see them again. For me, the passing of time is quick when keeping track with each blooming flower. I have this desire to take the ephemeral beauty and make it a little less temporary.

WHY FLOWERS?

My love for painting, drawing, and making art with flowers stems from spring. I have lived in places with distinct winters, where everything living fades away and the weather turns cold and brown. Flowers have always been a sign of life, hope, and of spring and summer coming. When I lived in New York City, they turned the cold, gray, concrete, building-filled city into something alive again. I’d walk blocks out of the way to see the magnolias blooming, which were some of the first signs of the changing of seasons.

ART JOURNAL ART SHOW

Last spring, I participated in an art show in Portland, Oregon, USA. The show was curated by a poet named Ash Good and opened with the release of her new poetry book called These Things Will Never Happen Quite Like That Again.

The show’s theme, inspired by a poem in her book, was My Grandmother’s Grandmother’s Great Grandmother Sings With Me. It explored female ancestors, generations of makers, resourceful women, changes. From this theme, I kept coming back to flowers. They are feminine. They are often grown by the hard work of so many women, including many women in my family: my mothers, my grandmothers, my great grandmothers.

I chose the king protea for my piece because it represents change and transformation. Generations of women have transformed to this point in time, where I exist as a piece of each one of them, and a piece of myself. When I sat down to make my art, I couldn’t paint it on a panel. It didn’t feel like me; it didn’t inspire and excite me. I am more inspired to paint in an art journal, where I hide more than just the painting.

I created a handmade journal, a rather simple little book of kraft paper stitched together. I only included three spreads plus a cover; although only one spread would actually be visible once it was framed. With the women of my past and the women of my future, the ones that would consider me their ancestors someday, in the front of my mind, I created this art journal. I hand lettered words and experimented with ideas in this art journal, and I, of course, painted the king protea. I had the art journal framed using a spacer between the glass and the art journal to give the journal space within the frame, with the art journal opened to the king protea spread.

TRY THIS

I often explore flowers in my art journal, especially when I‘m feeling uninspired. I want to share some floral art journaling exercises for you to try in your own art journaling practices. In each of these exercises, you will need flower inspiration: an image, a photograph, an actual flower. If I don’t have my own photographs or actual flowers, I will often use Flickr images without copyright restrictions, public domain images, or vintage floral plate images.

COLOUR BLOCKING FLORALS

Referencing your floral inspiration, use a pencil to lightly sketch out the general shape of the flower and petals. Now look closer at your flower and see how you can block out the colours. Sketch those lines in with your pencil. Don‘t be too detailed; you should only be using a few colours on this piece. This sketch will be a loose guide for the colour blocking as you paint this flower. Pick your colours for the flower including some white and black for creating tints and shades. Start with the back layer and add the colour blocks to the front. Finish by adding a background with your choice of medium.

ABSTRACT FLOWERS

Pick out your colours of paint inspired by the colours of your floral inspiration. Begin with a flat brush that isn’t too small and loosely create the flowers with your brush strokes. This is not a real life depiction of the flowers, but instead, an exercise where you let the flower inspire your brush movements freely. Once you’ve created the flowers, fill in the background spaces (if there are any) with a colour that will compliment the flowers. Once the paint is dried, add in leaves using paint, coloured pencils, pastels, paint markers, or whatever you choose. Make them loose and scribbled.

BLIND CONTOUR BOUQUET

Using your floral inspiration as a reference, keep your eyes on the flowers and your waterproof pen on your art journal as you trace the lines of the flowers on the paper. Expect it to be a mess! (You aren’t actually looking at what you are drawing after all!) Once you are done, you can now add colour. Use paint or various media to fill in the messy line drawn flowers to complete your floral art journal spread of imperfection and beauty.

LINE DRAWN VINTAGE FLORALS

Find an image of vintage floral prints to inspire this piece (my favorites are dahlias and peonies). Flickr or google search will come up with some inspiring options of floral prints from the 1800s or early 1900s. Start with a pencil and do a little journaling where you will eventually put your flower. Use a waterproof pen to draw the outline of the flower from your reference image. Again, perfection isn’t necessary here. Once you have the flower drawn, pick a 3-4 similar colours to paint the flower. Use varying colours on the petals. Mix colours to create even more colour options. Once you are done, choose a coloured pencil of an opposite colour and colour in some of the background.

In all of these exercises, you can add in other elements of art journaling as well: hidden journaling, collage backgrounds, quotes or words, and anything else that will make it your own unique art journal spread!

Alicia is an artist living in Portland, Oregon, USA. She lost her fear of making ugly art shortly after her oldest daughter was born, and since then, has been making almost daily. She art journals, hand letters, paints, draws, creates stationery, and experiments with anything that interests her! She has also recently started teaching art journaling workshops. Alicia is a full time mama to two little girls (4 years old and 1 year old), but makes art as often as she can despite how busy motherhood is.

YOU CAN FIND ALICIA:

Website www.vineandthistle.com Instagram www.instagram.com/vineandthistle