Learning and Adapting

I think that artists are always interested in learning new things; things that can be used as taught or that can be adapted to the artist's own taste.

Last Saturday I went down to Bonners Ferry, Idaho for a class at the Bamboo Room - https://www.facebook.com/BambooRoomCrafts. This is the second class I have taken with Linda on card making and I really enjoyed myself. The focus this week was flowers, using die-cuts and other products that I don't remember the names of.

class cards

These are the cards I made in class. Linda always has most of the materials ready for students to just color and put together, but this time we had the chance to use the die-cut plates and the cutter. She also taught us how to mold the flowers so they have depth and dimension.

I took what I learned home with me and created my own card. However, I don't have any of the fancy equipment, so everything was done by hand.

my card

I used the flowers from the class as a guide and made my own patterns out of heavy card. Then I used the patterns and drew the flowers on one of my own painted papers, drawing in the detail on one set of petals with pen & ink. Each flower uses 3 sets of petals so I spent a fair amount of time cutting things out. I used another of my painted papers for the leaves, molded the petals, glued things together and once they were dry mounted them on a card. I finished it off with some paper quilling and a few extras.

it different view

Here is a view from an angle which shows the quilling a bit better.

I am already working on more patterns to make more flowers. As I don't intend for this to be a major part of my artistic life, I won't be buying all the equipment to make these cards or flowers the same way dedicated card makers make them. I have adapted what I learned to the materials I have on hand. It may take longer but the enjoyment is the same.