Paper pansy inspirations
Playing around with colouring for these paper pansies
Re-examining my paper pansies after a lengthy period of time away has given me a new perspective in my re-imagining of these exquisite flowers known as pansies and violas.
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I recently had a private one-on-one class with an artist-student where we made paper pansies together. Every time I teach a workshop, I prepare by making at least one of the flower I am to teach to refresh my memory (especially if it's not a flower I make often). This time was no different and in fact, it gave me an opportunity to re-examine how I'd made pansies in the past.
It's interesting how time can give us a perspective that we might not have had before. In my case, it was 3 years ago that I last made pansies, and I thought those were pretty good. I even wrote a blog post on it which you can read here.
Fast forward to the present, and I somehow was able to be more loose in my approach: less about “getting it done” and more about experimenting out of sheer curiosity. I went to my local nursery and took a picture of every type of pansy they had. And for the first time as part of my creative process, I used these photos to categorize the pansies into different pattern groups to tackle. This might seem like a no-brainer way of approaching a subject matter with so much variation, but in the past, I certainly wasn't as systematic. I would have thought about it and then out of impatience and excitement, just jumped right in. This more deliberate approach is more in line with my bird-making process (which I think is rubbing off on me!).
Feel free to download a compressed version of the Inspiration Booklet here.
Pansies made for a commission in 2021.
Although I love crepe paper, I find that it is crepe paper, not the colouring medium, that is the main limitation of creating any type of successful patterning. Crepe paper with its rough grain lines is not made to facilitate detailed colouring work, even when stretched. Some crepe paper, like German doublette, soaks up liquids immediately, while the Italian crepe paper, lets the liquid sit on top longer. There doesn't seem to be a middle-ground when it comes to ease of liquid absorption.
A dry medium like pastel is great because we don't need to deal with how well the paper is with liquids. However, pastels doesn't mimic the colour translucency apparent in pansy petals. Neither do acrylics which tend to be quite opaque. Even using acrylic mediums like a glazing medium doesn’t seem to solve the transparency issue. Can you tell that I’m a little preoccupied with making my pansies look somewhat translucent?
Various paper pansies I made by referring to photos I took of pansies at my local nursery. I categorized all of the photos in my Inspiration Booklet.
Then of course, there's also the issue of making the paper rigid and strong enough, and the task of mimicking the various form/shape of the flower. Some pansies (and violas) have petals with fairly flat profiles and tiny ruffles on the edges, while other pansies have very wavy-shaped petals, and some with deep ruffles. If you work with crepe paper, you’ll know that preserving the grain lines will allow for more ruffles, yet its preserving the grain lines that creates the roughness in the paper that is difficult to colour.
So the piece de resistance is the perfect combination of a successful pattern with the form/shape that it comes in. And what a challenge this can be!
After much experimentation, I ended up with several combinations of paper+colouring medium depending on the pattern of the pansy, some of which I’m quite happy with! I am currently putting together a Pansy Online Course to share everything I’ve learned. As such, there will be more to come!
In the meantime, you can download my Pansy Inspiration Booklet for well, inspiration!