Archives for category: pressed botanicals

A Little Reality and a Little Fantasy

December 10, 2013 //

As winter sets in, I’m going back and forth between creating new graphics for my sizeable harvest of ivy, ginkgo, and dozens of other plants, and using those same leaves as inspiration for a new series of acrylic paintings that mirrors my pressed botanical compositions. I love the freedom of choosing color schemes and degree of detail in the paintngs. I’ll bring about ten of them to the Velvet Mill in Stonington on December 28 and January 4th. Hope to see some familiar faces there. Others will pop up on Etsy soon or on request.

Tags abstract art, azalea, botanical, botanical art, botanical collage, collage, connecticut artist, garden art

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, botanical collage, botanical painting, collage, Garden art, Gardening, graphic art, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals, real botanicals, Uncategorized

More Work with Miniature Ivy

September 3, 2013 //

This is the first of a series of small works that will highlight tiny foliage. I started with miniature ivy but plan to move on to raspberry, scented geranium shoots and other shapely miniatures. This will be a month-long project since most of these have yet to be harvested. I look forward to see them hung in a tight grouping of nine.

Meanwhile I’ll work on some graphics to highlight some large, dramatic and graceful sensitive ferns I have waiting in the hopper.

Tags botanical art, displaying dried plants, flower press, graphic backgrounds, lois lawrence, mounting botanicals, mounting plants, pressed botanicals, stonington artist

Categories art, botanical art, botanical collage, collage, Garden art, Gardening, graphic art, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals, Uncategorized

Botanical Roller-Coaster in Yellow

July 19, 2013 //

I love what these undulating lines do to the look of the foliage I use. In previous versions of this basic design I’ve used feathery ferns and, in one case nothing but very tiny individual fronds. While this piece uses some ordinary ferns to balance the composition, the real stars of the show are the bold Sensitive Fern at the bottom center and individual leaf clusters from my Fringed Bleeding Heart.

Tags abstract art, abstract botanical, Bleeding Heart, botanical, botanical art, botanical collage, connecticut artist, etsy, ferns, framed art, lois lawrence, mixed-media, pressed botanicals, real botanical, stonington artist, Yellow art

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, graphic art, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals, Uncategorized, wall art

Pressed Foliage as a Family Crest?

July 9, 2013 //

This simple composition consists of three leaves — scented geranium, ivy, and sweet potato vine — surrounded by a faux double mat. Sometimes simple is best.

Tags connecticut artist plant collage mixed media original botanical art lois lawrence, ivy, pressed botanicals, scented geranium, stonington ct, stonington garden, sweet potato vine

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals, Pressed flowing, Uncategorized, wall

Famous Quotations as a Backdrop for Pressed Botanicals

June 15, 2013 //

I use Ralph Waldo Emerson quotations (and those of other wise men and women) in many of my botanical pieces. A lovely woman I met today at the Providence Artisan’s Market suggested I use this one from the great Massachusetts sage. While enhancing it with botanicals may prove a challenge — the quote is too long to repeat many times in a legible font — it brought tears to my eyes so it must happen!

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded.”

Here’s an example of literature as foundation for my work:

Tags botanical art, botanical collage, connecticut artist, famous quotations about success, lois lawrence, pressed botanicals, providence artisans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, stonington garden

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals, Pressed flowing

A Window on a Different World Through Spring Ferns

June 13, 2013 //

A while back I made one of these little dioramas that looks to me like a photograph I might have taken back in my landscape painting days. The bottom is layered, as nature would be with growth including dill and a sprig of new-growth andromeda — as nature would not be, but you get the idea. The central focus is on newly unfurled spring ferns. There are overhanging ‘branches’ of bleeding heart and what sky doesn’t need an etoile? Now that I’ve put this little piece together, I’m regretting that I harvested so few ferns at this stage of development. I love the sparseness of them but I guess I’ll have to wait until next spring to reap the benefits of that experience. All varieties of my ferns are now either fully open and robust or getting there fast.

This will probably be the last new piece to be packed up and headed to the Providence Artisan’s Market at Lippett Park this Saturday. The experts tell us the weather will be perfect!

Tags art blog, botanic art, botanical art, connecticut artist, graphics with word, landscape, lois lawrence, making botanical, nature collage, pressed botanicals, pressed leaves, stonington artist, stonington garden

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals

A Little Trompe d’oeil with a Return to Tradition

June 13, 2013 //

For this simple composition of Fringed Bleeding Heart, Fern, and Sweet Woodruff, I created the illusion of a violet mat which is actually a graphic composed of a simple octagon filled with color and surrounded by lines of varying widths and shades.

Although the lovely flowers on my Bleeding Heart are mostly gone, I can work with the foliage for the whole season as long as I harvest judiciously.

Tags connecticut artist, lippitt park artisansing heart, lois lawrence, pressed botanicals, pressed fern, shade plants, stonington artist, stonington garden, trompe

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals

Sweet Woodruff Punctuated with a Rose Petal

June 5, 2013 //

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For my pressed botanical art, I usually disassemble sprigs of Sweet Woodruff so I can make perfect little wagon-wheel whorls and folded leaves that work well as sepals for my fantasy flowers or shrubbery in my stylized landscapes. This time, I went the traditional route for pressing botanicals, and kept the whole sprigs intact. The central sprig — largest of the three — had a small white flower at the tip which I replaced with a folded rose petal.

Waiting eagerly for more roses to bloom. Meanwhile this little piece is the latest addition to my Etsy inventory. Hoping for drier weather than is now predicted so I can set up shop in Lippett Park in Providence on Saturday as part of the Providence Artisan’s Market.

Tags connecticut artist, cottage decor, garden art, ground cover, lois lawrence, mixed-media, plant collage, pressed botanical, rose petals, stonington connecticut, sweet woodruff

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals

A Trio of Landscapes with Pressed Leaves

June 3, 2013 //

When I wasn’t tending my display this weekend at beautiful Lippett Park in Providence, I turned my attention to some sweet little landscapes. I wanted to depict three different times of day and was tempted to use identical plants and placements, but my ADD wouldn’t hear of it, so the foliage differs from image-to-image. Some ferns, Andromeda, Sweet Woodruff, Columbine and even Raspberry.

I think it’s time to go abstract tomorrow.

I put them up on Etsy and Pinterest. Why not?

Tags collage, dried plants, ferns, horticulture, lois lawrence, mixed-media, modern botanical art, moonscape, night landscape, plant art, pressed botanicals, pressed ferns, stonington artist, stonington garden, sunset, unusual landscapes

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals

The Leaves on the Trees are Finally Out! Have You Really Looked?

May 23, 2013 //

The background graphic above which these three bubbles of maple leaves float is a quote by Albert Schweitzer: “Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.”

See my other botanicals in my Etsy shop.

Tags albert schweitzer, connecticut gardens, famous quotes, foliage, horticulture, leaves, lois lawrence, maple leaf, Maple leaves, plant specimen, pressed botanical. botanical art, stonington connecticut, stonington ct

Categories art, botanical, botanical art, collage, Garden art, Gardening, mixed media, multi media, pressed botanicals