This design was entered in a regional floral art society competition where I had been invited to demonstrate some designs for members. It can be a double edged sword to do this – on the one hand the locals feel pleased to have the invited guest as part of their competition, on the other hand they sometimes feel intimidated and don’t enter thinking they could not possibly compete against someone who is good enough to be a demonstrator.
One of the best lessons I have learned in floral art competition is that you are only as good as the judge thinks on competition day. If you do your best with a design and follow the principles and elements, you are competing on an even field. I have been placed ahead of some I would consider much better designers than me, I have also placed behind complete beginners who presented a design that better matched the requirements in the judges’ eyes. That’s competition!
Now let’s get to the actual design. The title was “Summer time”. To me this meant the beach, so I have tried to recreate a feeling of the beach and summer with my design.
Shells, sea sponges and seaweed have been used to form a base for the design with Norfolk pine foliage, palm frond (weaved to a nautilus shell shape) and an umbrella fern. Yellow roses and craspedia are there to bring “sunshine” to the design.
This design did not place in the competition.
Judges comments: The design does have a feeling of summer however it is bottom heavy. Scale and proportion of materials needs attention. The large shell dominated the design despite there being a lot of plant material.
