Designing Realistic Flowers for Projects

Daylily rug, by Annake

I love flowers! That is why my business is called Annake's Garden and my blog is called  “Cuttings from Annake's Garden”. More of my work involves flowers than any other single subject. I am a great admirer of Georgia O'Keeffe's giant flowers and her determination to get people to really look  at flowers. While my individual flowers don't approach the size of her paintings, I do like to work larger than life. Actually, this goes back to a time when I was teaching fifth graders about Georgia O’Keeffe. I made several oversized flower pictures in various media to show the students, along with samples of O’Keeffe's work, before I asked them to make their own large flower pictures. Their favorite sample was a study in pastels and crayon of an orange daylily. Several students asked me to make computer copies of the picture for them. I did that, filed the picture, and essentially forgot about it.

"Day-glo Daylily", needlepoint by Annake

After I retired, I cleaned out my files and came across the original drawing. I decided to make a rug, using the sketch as a basis for my design. It was the first rug I ever sold. Fortunately, J.D. had already been archiving photos of my work, so I can show you what that piece looked like (above).  I've also done a daylily as a large needlepoint (right). The colors came from my imagination; however, I see one in this year's catalogs that comes very close to my imaginary one.  Is art imitating life or is life imitating art?

Sample card

In both cases, I was working on a scale considerably larger than life. Doing this frees you to include as many details as you like — whether or not those details existed in an actual flower. There are many instances, however, when this is either not possible, or when it not desirable. Sometimes less is really more. Sometimes it is simply a matter of space. Suppose you are making a series of greeting cards.  The entire card may be smaller than the flower you are depicting. Instead of cropping the flower to fit, why not do a depiction of the flower that fits the card and eliminate unnecessary details?

Sunflower project materials

Once again the size of the finished project dictates what you can and cannot do.  Take, for example, a sunflower that I decided to do in needlepoint in a round frame that was only 9 inches in diameter. Now, I love sunflowers. They are large and complex. They are not dainty, shy blossoms. They are large, bright,  and kind of in-your-face. They never fail to cheer me.

Before I began working on the design, I collected pictures of sunflowers, fabric decorated with them, live flowers, all kinds of materials.

After tracing several examples of both the inside and outside edges of the frame, I worked to get a sunflower center that would be in correct proportion for the ring of petals. These proportions differ between sunflower species, as we discovered from planting Central and South American species. I found a combination that I liked and filled in details of the center. I didn't attempt to put in all the seeds, just suggested them. Then I determined how many outer petals I could arrange around the center, making them similar but not identical.  I shaded petals that were overlapped to indicate depth. At that point, I was ready to start on the actual project.

Finished sunflower needlepoint

I prepared my needlepoint canvas (#14 white mono) and ran colored threads horizontally and vertically through the center. Then I centered the canvas over the drawing and traced it onto the canvas with a fine-lined permanent marker. Once it was dry, I rubbed the lines vigorously on both sides with a paper towel to pick up any bits of ink that might discolor the yarn and I pulled out the centering threads. With the color areas of the picture completed, I filled in the background in a neutral color. Finally, I began back-stitching around certain segments with a single strand of yarn. (This is traditionally done on counted cross-stitch pictures, sometimes using a single color for all the back-stitching.)  When I use it on needlepoint, I prefer to use lighter, darker, or grayer yarns to emphasize the features I'm outlining. Purists won't do this sort of surface stitching on conventional tent stitch. I'm not a purist. I'll not only use back-stitching, but also any surface embroidery that will enhance the canvas work and make it match my mental vision of the piece.

When making a pillow in folk embroidery on gingham, I made a less realistic sunflower, concentrating more on texture. Backstitching here gives the center a different appearance.

Sunflower pillow with detail

Sunflower center

Incidentally, sunflowers should delight the readers who enjoyed our Roots, Leaves, and S.T.E.M. post (February 29, 2020), because they represent both Science and Mathematics.   A sunflower is not a single flower, but a composite of masses of two entirely different kinds of flowers. What we think of as petals are actually individual strap-shaped ray flowers whose bright colors attract pollinators. The central disc is made up of large numbers of disc flowers which, when pollinated, will produce seeds. These flowers are arranged in curved lines which follow the Fibonacci number sequence. The sequence is 1, 1,  2,  3,  5,  8, 13,  21, 34, 55, 89, and theoretically continues to infinity. Each number is the sum of the two previous numbers. The sequence is found many places in Nature — out to the structure and motion of spiral galaxies.

I do a lot more work from quick sketches and studies in pencil, watercolor, pastel. and marker and from handmade charts than I do from photos. However, I've done enough to offer some advice. If you are planning to sell your projects, be sure you have not used anyone's copyrighted material. I work from my own photos and those of J.D. and J.J. (with their permission, of course). If accuracy is important, take lots of photos from different angles, distances, and lighting effects. Be selective about the parts you use. Leave out anything that does not improve the composition. Let me show you what I mean.

Original photo

This photo of poppies has several things going for it. The lighting is interesting. The poppies show up well against the dark background. The red of the petals is complemented by the green stems. But look at the gray, dead leaves at the lower left. They do not help the composition at all. Now look at the picture after J. D. has modified it. Cropping and/or otherwise altering a photo can add a great deal to its appeal.

Poppy photo, edited

On the other hand, sometime a picture needs to be expanded. Look at these two pictures taken at the same time. See how much showing the full petals makes the picture more interesting? That is why taking multiple shots is valuable.

I do, however, want to show you how to modify an outline pattern so that it works more easily as a chart. The first thing to do is to transfer the pattern to quarter-inch graph paper. I use either dressmaker's carbon or a sheet of paper which I have colored heavily on the back with a graphite pencil. Aligning one major straight line in the design with a line on the graph paper, I transfer the design by going over the outline with a ball-point pen that has used up all its ink. Once the transfer is complete, I draw straight lines, square corners, and forward and backward diagonal lines to come as close as possible to the curved lines in the original design. The resulting new design, shown here in red, can then be enlarged or reduced to fit any size of graph paper. (It can also be simplified if you wish.)

Squaring off an outline

 
Before I use or store the pattern, I trace it once again with a permanent marker. Some uses for this type of pattern include:

    a counted cross-stitch design
    a panel of ceramic tiles
    a collage
    a felt applique with cut-out pieces glued or sewn to a background
    a wood carving
    a needlepoint or quickpoint   
    an embossed piece of copper foil
    tooled leather
    the center panel for a patchwork quilt
    a mosaic
    an afghan put together from "granny squares"

Simple iris pattern graphed two ways

Occasionally I enlarge a small or medium-sized design laid out on quarter-inch graph paper to a size suitable for making a latch-hook rug, a wall hanging, quilt blocks, etc. The easiest way to do this is to draw around a block of four squares of graph paper for each of the single squares in the smaller design. I tape a number of pages of quarter-inch graph paper together and lay them out on a large table. Beginning at the center of my design, I draw the 4-square block that represents the center square of the original design. I then work outward in all directions from that center square. I number or color the blocks as I go. The finished pattern will not match either #3.75 or #5 rug canvas exactly, but it will come very close. Count the number of horizontal and vertical squares on your pattern and mark the same number of squares on the canvas. Mark the center of the canvas and draw the outline of the entire design around it. When you cut the canvas, always allow an extra 4 or 5 squares of mesh on each side to turn under before you begin putting in the strands of rug yarn.

You can reverse the process, changing a graph to an outline drawing, but it is a bit more difficult. I suggest that you trace the squared outlines on another sheet of paper so that you don't damage the original. Then work very lightly in pencil, turning squared corners into curves. Stop often to review what you have done, erase where needed, and re-draw.  Be patient and persistent.

Click here to download

Finally, let me leave you with a downloadable outline pattern that you can use in any way you like as it is,  or modify it in any of the ways discussed here.  You can multiply it or reverse it horizontally (or both horizontally and vertically) to make larger, more complex designs.

No matter what your purpose is for capturing the images of flowers, please take time to explore and enjoy their remarkable shapes, colors, textures and fragrances.

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Irises, Poppies, and Lilies - Oh, My!

From time to time, J.D. and I like to share some of the flowers in our garden with you through J. D.'s photographs. Despite a very dry winter and late freezes and frosts, the irises were especially beautiful and bountiful. The miniature iris appeared in early April while the crocuses were still in bloom. The dwarfs were in full bloom in mid-April, followed by Dutch and species irises, and the tall bearded irises bloomed until mid-June.

Iris marked for removal with yarn

Many of the clumps have multiplied so much that they must be thinned. This should be done every three or four years, but we are doing it for the second year in a row! J. D. has been designating plants that need to be removed by tying lengths of colored yarn (never in short supply around here) around the stalks. Some will be relocated to other parts of the garden, while others will be sold at the farmers' markets.

Irises reproduce from structures called rhizomes. Many people think of these as roots, but they are really modified stems. They lie mostly on the surface of the ground and the short, true roots grow down from the lightly buried lower surface of the rhizome. I'll let J.D. tell you about lifting and re-planting them.

Iris with rhizome and roots, and digging knife

You need something that will cut the rhizome to separate plants, and something to loosen the soil 4" to 6" down and get under the irises' roots to lift them out. For individual plants or small clumps, I use my Japanese digging knife (pictured at the right); for larger clumps, I have a stout square-end spade. Cut through the rhizomes at the borders of the mass of plants you plan to remove; then dig, loosening the soil until you can get your tool under the irises, gently prying up all around the clump until you can get it to come free of the ground and the adjacent plants. Clean the dirt off the roots, and separate out individual leaf clusters with rhizome and roots.

To re-plant, loosen up the soil to about 5" deep, then make a shallow depression just big and deep enough to spread the true roots and bury them an inch or two deep. If you have particularly poor soil, you can add a little blood and bone meal to the soil now, before filling the dirt in around and on top of the roots. Leave the top half of the rhizome exposed, but pack the dirt firmly around  it and over the roots. Water the iris in well; then pretty much ignore it. Irises seem to thrive on benign neglect - just water it when and as you do the plants that surround it, and leave it alone.

J.D. shared a picture of our earliest-blooming poppy in the June 1, 2016 post. This beautiful purple poppy was frozen last year, but came back vigorously this year. We have two varieties of orange poppies, one of which produces extra-large blooms. Visitors tell me it looks like it is made of silk and want to touch the blossoms to see that they are real. We have two red poppies, one of which has ruffled edges, and two peach varieties, one of which is ruffled. In addition, we have pink, rose, and a beautiful white poppy with a black “throat”.

We got quite a nice surprise this spring. We know some of our poppies multiply by self-seeding (the orange ones have established themselves everywhere). This year we found a new one of the peach poppies at least two meters from its parents, growing out of a gravel path. Its top blossom was so large that I had to hold it still so that J. D. could photograph it. It covered both my hands and was larger than a salad plate! We will re-locate it to a more hospitable garden plot and see what it produces next year.

Bagged poppy seed heads

We dig and sell the surplus orange poppies and will divide the peach ones this year, too. We save and sell the seeds from all ten varieties. J. D. can tell you how he does that.

I bag the seed heads with paper lunch bags (plastic makes the heads subject to mold and rot, and slows the drying) secured with several tight wraps of electrical tape. I label the bags with permanent marker by color (before covering the seed heads - much easier to write legibly that way), and wait for the stalks and foliage to dry out before cutting the stems.

Lenten rose in bloom

Our plants have kept their own schedules this year — some blooming earlier than usual, some later; some blooming longer than usual, others for a shorter time. Some just seem confused. For example, we have a Lenten rose which bloomed and an Easter lily I planted after it bloomed last year. Both are blooming for the fourth of July! The Easter lily bloomed three times last year, the last time just before frost. It seems determined to “celebrate” as many holidays as possible.

Orange daylilies

The orange daylilies are late this year. They are very prolific and need to be divided just about every year. They are popular at the markets a little later in the summer. They are also popular with our neighbors. One lady a few doors down started with a row of our lilies a few years ago. Now they take up a large portion of her lawn and really “put on a show” each summer. She likes the glossy green foliage even after the flowers are gone and says she has to mow less lawn every year.

Regal lily

I usually don't have to look up at any flowers except our climbing roses, flowering shrubs, and sunflowers. This year, however, we have a really ambitious regal lily. J. D. had to tie it to a long l bamboo pole. It is in a raised bed, so I'm not sure how tall it really is, bur I suspect it comes close to J. D.' s six-foot-one. It really overhangs my five-foot-one! In the same raised bed, there is a clump of white lilies that was only a single stalk last year. Now there are six stalks, so it, too, will need to be divided. I counted 19 buds and blossoms on the original stalk and nearly as many on the younger ones. They all smell marvelous!

White lilies

Speaking of fragrances, we did a “tour” of the irises when they were at their best and identified 21 different scents in several categories: floral, fruity, musky, citrus, candy-like, spicy and “what-would-you-call -that?”. Not all of our irises are fragrant, but the majority certainly are. I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse of our garden. I just wish you could smell the flowers as well as look at them.

Best wishes from us to all of you,

(and J.D.)

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Some Questions Answered

(To celebrate passing the ninety-day milestone with this blog, Annake answers some reader's questions that have accumulated...)

Q:  Why did you choose the name Annake for yourself and your business?

A:  Annake is what my Frisian grandmother called me when I was a little girl. My middle name is Anna, in honor of my grandmother's only daughter, who died long before I was born. My grandmother was my foremost role model.

A Bi-colored Iris from the Garden

Not quite five feet tall and weighing less than a hundred pounds, she had an indomitable spirit. As a young woman, she left her home on the western edge of the Jutland Peninsula, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to America in steerage (below decks on a ship), traveled across half the United States by train to Davenport, Iowa --- all to marry a man she had never met. She was a respected midwife who delivered scores of babies, including six of her own. More than a hundred of them --- black, brown, red and white --- came to celebrate her eightieth birthday with her.

She was an accomplished cook and an expert needlewoman. Although she was severely crippled by arthritis by the time she reached middle age, she continued to knit, crochet, quilt, and embroider into her mid-eighties. Sadly, she outlived all of her family except my father, another niece, and myself. Still she never lost her grit, determination, or sense of humor. She will always be my guiding star.

Q:  Why do you use the orange daylilies as a background for your blog? Didn't you say that irises are your favorite flower?

A:  Do you mean besides the fact that our daylilies produce so many new bulbs each year that we give away a wheelbarrow load every summer? 

Daylily Latch Hooked Rug

Actually, this goes back to a time when I was teaching fifth graders about Georgia O’Keeffe. I made several oversized flower pictures in various media show the students, along with samples of O’Keeffe work, before I asked them to make their own large flower pictures. Their favorite was a study in pastels and crayon of an orange daylily. Several students asked me to make computer copies of the picture for them. I did that, filed the picture, and essentially forgot about it.

After I retired, I cleaned out my files and came across the original drawing. I decided to make a rug, using the picture as a basis for my design. It was the first rug I sold. The lady who bought it was horrified at the thought of putting it on the floor and walking on it. She said she didn't know what she was going to do with it but she had to have it. That's the kind of customer I like!

Day-Glo Daylily Needlepoint

I've also done a daylily as a large needlepoint. The colors came from my imagination; however, I see one in this year's catalogs that comes very close to my imaginary one. Is art imitating life or is life imitating art?

Red Iris from the Garden

Yes, I did say irises are my favorite flower. I can hardly wait for this year's blooms! Incidentally, another of the examples I did for the O’Keeffe project, a pink cut-paper iris, became the basis for still another rug. (See the photo at the bottom of the page.) I'm glad I didn't throw those samples away.

Q:  You have shown several works in progress on your blog. Will we get to see them again when they are completed?

Iris Needlepoint, Completed and Framed

A:  Yes, indeed. They can be seen on our Etsy shop site, of course, but I also plan to use some to illustrate future posts. The framed iris needlepoint I was working on in the February 12^th post is shown here today. The wall hanging shown in progress on the February 28^th post is in the blocking and backing stages now and will be shown soon. You can see the jewelry being made by another of our artisans on the April3rd post, along with much of her other work, on our shop site currently.

Q:  Does the Gnome really live under your garden? (This is from a child.)

A.  No, dear, he was only teasing you. The ground would be much too hard and cold to live under in the wintertime. Actually, the Gnome lives under our house.

I really enjoy your questions. Ask away!

Annake

Iris Latch Hooked Rug

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.