Botanical Blooms
botanical blooms
in my art journal
Hello lovely artist!
I’ve just put the finishing touches to my fourth art journaling lesson for Wanderlust 2022, and I thought I’d share this whimsical page with you today! For those who will undoubtedly ask: it’s not possible to join this year-long course once it has started, but hopefully at some point my lessons will become available another way. Until then, I offer plenty of other art journaling classes and I’d love to see you there!
playful botanicals
When it comes to watercolours, flowers and plants are my favorite things to paint. Mine are nowhere near as delicate as the vintage botanicals from past centuries, but why not mix them together, and give them our own twist?
In this super playful project, the idea is to combine watercolour with doodles, stamps, stencils, ephemera and vintage botanical prints, then gathering it all in a whimsical, dimensional bouquet that fills the page with joy!
perfectly imperfect
The whole point of this project is to have fun, experiment and create a lovely contrast between the detailed vintage prints, and our own messy doodling. I was so much fun to get messy, use my non-dominant hand, try out all the ways that I can use my brush to make marks, play with water and colour, see how they interact, and allow myself to paint outside of the lines!
The bonus with this kind of playful work is that you usually end up with way more material than you will actually need, because the more you play, the more you will loosen up and surprise yourself! So this means you will end up with plenty of fun botanical papers to use in your art in the future.
creating a bouquet
I started the page with a simple neutral background of vintage sheet music and white gesso. Then I created all my flowers and foliage, and cut them all out, sometimes with scissors, other times by tearing the paper with my fingers for a more organic feel. This takes a little time and can feel a quite meditative!
After that, it was time to arrange all these lovely blooms into a beautiful bouquet! The variety of styles in my flowers is really what made it come alive. Once I was happy with my arrangement, I took a picture to remember the placement, and started gluing.
Then for finishing touches I journaled on the background with a white paint marker, added a few bits of darker foliage from a printed napkin, a butterfly stamp, and the words "wild flowers". Because yes, these blooms are a little wild! And that's what I love about this page!
We all need flowers in our lives, they are little works of art from Mother Nature and to me they embody joy, freedom, beauty, hope, boldness and fragility, love and loveliness... Creating with them is always such a delight to my soul. I hope this page has inspired you and that this little bouquet will bring joy to your day!