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    Pressed Flower Art: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft
    Pressed Flower Art: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft
    Pressed Flower Art: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft
    Ebook302 pages27 minutes

    Pressed Flower Art: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft

    By W. Eugene Burkhart

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    About this ebook

    The art of using pressed and dried flower materials to create pictures and designs has been popular throughout history in cultures around the world. Acclaimed artist W. Eugene Burkhart Jr. passes the craft on in this comprehensive, full-color, how-to guide, sharing information on tools and materials, detailed step-by-step instructions and close-up photographs, and an assortment of projects, patterns, and design ideas for making botanicals, whole flower designs, and intricate cutwork pictures.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStackpole Books
    Release dateJun 9, 2008
    ISBN9780811743549
    Pressed Flower Art: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft

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      Book preview

      Pressed Flower Art - W. Eugene Burkhart

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Tools and Materials

      Pressing Plant Material

      Pressed Flower and Foliage Specimens

      Making Pressed Botanicals

      Making Botanicals with a Flower Press

      Making Botanicals with a Telephone Book

      Botanical Gallery

      Making Whole Flower Designs

      Project: The Garden

      Project: Floral Splendor I

      Whole Flower Design Gallery

      Making Cutwork Designs

      Project: Traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Design

      Project: Garden of Eden

      Other Designs to Try

      Cutwork Design Gallery

      Supplies and Resources

      W. Eugene Burkhart Jr. creating pressed flower designs in his studio.

      Nature produces beautiful flowers that live for only a short period. By pressing and drying these wonderful specimens, you can enjoy them for a much longer time. There are three major types of pressed flower designs: botanicals, whole flower designs, and cutwork designs. Botanicals exhibit the parts of the plant, with its flowers and sometimes the roots. Whole flower designs include natural, conventional, geometric, and abstract forms. In this traditional form of design, you use several varieties of flowers. The intricate cutwork designs are the modern form of pressing. Usually the artist first draws a scene, still life, or other design on paper, and then determines what plant material is needed. Often pieces of plant material are cut using scissors to create the exact sizes and shapes needed to complete the design.

      Botanical. This scarlet sage salvia botanical by Burkhart exhibits the entire plant, including the root system.

      Whole flower design. This lovely design by Burkhart titled Along the Road, was made with columbine, basket of gold, and speedwell.

      People have pressed and preserved plant material for centuries, both for science and for show. One of the oldest pressed plant specimens ever discovered was in an Egyptian tomb, dating to around 300 B.C. Botanists around the world made pressed botanicals for collections of specimens and herbariums as early as 1500 A.D. Others pressed plants to create decorative designs. During the Victorian era it was popular among women to create beautiful whole flower pictures from plant material they had picked on walks and then pressed.

      One famous practitioner of the art was Princess Grace of Monaco, who was the first president of the garden club she founded there. In the 1970s, she learned to press flowers from a friend from her native town of Philadelphia. Her wonderful pressed designs were colorful and usually included a blend of textures.

      My interest in growing flowers and plants and in various forms of floral design, both two- and three-dimensional, has spanned more than five decades. During my early childhood, my grandmother, the late Leuanna Gerhart, introduced me to gardening, floral design, and pressing. At age six, I entered my first flower show. It was staged by the Women’s Club of Muhlenberg Township in Berks County, Pennsylvania, of which my mother, the late Elizabeth I. Burkhart, was a member. The entry was a fresh flower arrangement in a seashell. I received third prize for my efforts. When I was a teenager, my grandmother encouraged me to experiment with different methods of drying and pressing the beautiful flowers from our gardens. While attending college, I pressed many specimens for plant identification in my horticulture classes.

      Cutwork design. Burkhart used cut plant materials to make this picture, titled Moonlight. The moon is made from pansy; the trees from fig, maidenhair fern, poinsettia foliage, and polka-dot plant; the arbor from basil; the steps from dusty miller and basil; the pond from delphinium; and the garden flowers from blue

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