I got a gorgeous Mother's Day bouquet. I love flowers but it really makes me sad to see them die so I try to find ways to make them last. I love to paint them and take pictures to try and immortalize them but this time I tried something a little different. I decided to make a paper sculpture out of this gorgeous lily.
Isn't this fantastic?
It pains me to do this but I start by disassembling the flower. I carefully peel off the outer leaves.
Here is the lily taken apart. I labeled the outside leaves and inside leaves. You could even number the petals if you wanted to be really specific but I decided to keep it simple.
Get a piece of thick paper. If you will be using watercolors, you could use a 90-140 lb piece of watercolor paper. If you are not using wet media, a nice white card stock will do just fine. I carefully traced around the petals. The petals are really fragile and curled up a bit so just gently lay the petal flat and use your fingers to hold down the edge. Trace the shape as best you can. Use your artistic license here a little if you need to. It really does not have to be exact since you will be "sculpting" these leaves and playing around with them a little.
Here is what my rough sketches look like.
Now I use a micron pen to ink in the details and fine tune my sketch, using the actual petal as my reference guide. I use pointillism to add value.
Here is my final drawing, all inked. As for the middle section of the flower (the stamen and pistil which I will just refer to as "the center"), it is not traceable like the petals so you have to do this part freehand. Draw what you see and you can use my sketch as an example too. I kept it pretty simple.
Next, I add paint using watercolors. I start with a light wash (try to see the lightest colors and paint those first then build by layering darker colors over the lighter ones as each layer dries). If you are impatient to wait for your layers to dry (ahem, ahem), use your hairdryer to speed things up. You can use whatever medium you like, you don't have to use watercolors. Simply use what you have (colored pencils, crayons, markers, whatever floats your boat.)
I finished painting my sketches. I decided to scan my image and tweak it in photoshop so I could label it and it also gives me the ability to make as many as I want. If you do not have photoshop, you could make a copy of your image in order to save the original. At this point, you will cut out your petals and the center. The petals look easy to cut with scissors but the center is a little more detailed so I grabbed my x-acto. If you do not have one of these, it is a great tool to have on hand for all types of crafting. I love it for detailed paper-cutting like this (great for collage work, as well).
Using my nice little sharp scissors to cut around the petals.
Using my x-acto for the more detailed cutting.
Now that the parts are cut out, I place the inner leaves around the center just to see what it looks like and I start playing with the leaves. I bend the edges of the leaves up a little to try to curl them. Use the petals as a reference and play around a little.
To attach the inner leaves to the center, I folded the bottom part of the left and right stem and fit it over the center. Once you have done the left and right petals in this manner, you can glue the final petal flat on the back.
I just used a simple glue stick to adhere the petals.
Here are the inner leaves all put together.
Attach the fourth and fifth petal in the same manner (folding the bottom of the stem and glueing it to the center.)
Attach the sixth and final petal flat and facing the opposite direction ( you will see the gap where there is a missing petal). So there you have it! A pretty paper flower sculpture.
There are so many things you could do with these. For instance, you could use tape to attach the flower to a stick. Make a whole bouquet! You could glue it to a frame and hang it to add a nice touch to your home decor. You could attach it to the top of a gift to really add a gorgeous touch (would look so pretty on a wedding or shower gift, for example). You could even get string and thread it into the flower to hang it. The best thing is that is will never shrivel and die!
Hope you have lots of fun creating these!
Warmly,
Pam