Class title: Thorns and Prickles
Staging: bench, space allowed 70cm width height unrestricted, must have some roses, judged from front.
A challenging title for this Class – Thorns and Prickles (must have some roses). The judging interpretation often places the most emphasis on the first word so thorns would need to be predominant in designs for this Class of competition.
I wanted to use thorns other than rose ones so cut some fresh bougainvillea branches and stripped the foliage, leaving just the thorns. I then bent them to a loop shape and wired this to allow the branches to dry and hold their shape. This was about a month before the competition.
Quite by accident I discovered that pine cones have a pointed end to each of the separate sections, making them prickly to touch – enter the filler for the focal area of my design. I have a beautiful old green glass (probably designed for a martini) with a cactus as the stem so knew this had to be the container for my design. To match the container with my design I have used a small piece of cactus as part of the focal area of the design.
Roses with foliage and thorns in place have been used sparingly in the design along with a few thorny stems without flowers.
Sadly, as I benched this design I broke the stem of the glass. With no time to repair it carefully before the design had to be staged for judging, I remembered that there is a lot to be said for always having a back up container for every design!
Judging feedback: A good design with use of different materials to meet the class title. The repair to the container was too obvious for the judges so it was marked down accordingly. One pine cone would have been sufficient for the focal area as three makes it too heavy when compared to the lightness of the rest of the design.