If you are a member here at FloralArtOnline, you will be familiar with our Member Competition Co-ordinator Bonnie.
As part of bringing you suggested interpretations of our member competition topics, Bonnie has been tasked with two designs that she saw as creating the most interest/questions/clarification from members.
This is the first – Breaking Out. Here are her thoughts when preparing her design.
Bonnie: When I see the title each month I naturally think about how I would interpret it. For this one I had in mind a design I saw many years ago in a competition that really resonated with me. The class title for that was “solo” but I always saw it as a flower escaping from the confines of the rest of the design. So it was the inspiration for my design, although I knew I could not just copy it.
For this design I wanted to use only plant material – no external structure or embellishments. The central part is a spiral technique used for bouquets, this one made with strelitzia flower stems as they are so strong as almost straight! I have added a line of statice in a bold colour combination to draw your eyes to it rather than have the stems dominate. By placing them in the centre of the spiral there is still one point of emergence which should emphasise the “breaking out” of the title.
It’s a simple design, that’s what I like – something that says the title without too much fuss.
Judges Comments: A clear interpretation of the class title which is strengthened by the bulk of the dominant material (below the tie) being closely packed whilst the upper part has plenty of space. Pleasing to see all ends of the stems have been cut the same angle – important in a simple design to have everything as perfect as possible as it is easier for a judge to be critical when there is not much to look at! The line of statice does give a feel for “breaking out” of the spiral although this may have been better shown by a larger flower but this is balanced by the fact that statice, by its very appearance, does look at though it is breaking out of the stem. Good placement at the back of the design to give this purple line depth as well.
An enhancement could have been to have one stem of statice caught deep in the bottom half of the spiral so our eyes followed this up the line to where the tallest stem is breaking out.
