AUTUMN BERRIES

This week I had my advanced students do the exercise of creating a mass out of leaves at the end of a branch by intertwining the finer terminal branches. They used a variety of different materials and the results are interestingly varied. Each of the images below are of corrected work. My correction to the students as they were working on each of these works was to strip more leaves off so that only those at the very ends of the branch were left.


Ellie Welkamp used an unknown material that had some berries on it. Once she started stripping the leaves she decided to make a feature of the berries as well. So, she managed to separate the leaves and berries in the design.

Nola Bird used a branch of Callistemon, an Australian native. Although seemingly stiff the branches were able to be interwoven to make the mass.

Christine Denmead used a 'Pincushion' Hakea, another Australian native. Her branch had flowers at the end that created an additional point of interest.

After the class she sent me the 'photo below of the material stripped of all the leaves creating a further expression of the material. 

It is now autumn here and we have had some quite wintery weather in the last week. I set my students the exercise, below, of an arrangement with berries or fruit with an autumnal feeling. The colour in this image is distorted as the lighting was not very good. (The vase is actually a very deep blue.)

Greetings from Christopher

28th April 2012