Whilst the rain was freshening up the garden here in Adelaide, I was in my workroom absorbed in the beauty of Agapanthus flower buds, in preparation for another 'weekly project' exercise.
If I had been asked to draw one without having looked at them first, I would have whipped up a cluster of upside-down tear drop shapes. Looking at them more closely & breaking those shapes down into simple forms, I was amazed to see just how different & unique each one was. In working towards a design, I wanted to represent their differing shapes & also those beautiful curved stems.
In choosing my colour palette, I struggled to find the exact shade of agapanthus purple...so I had to make do with what I have. I also wanted to pep up the background with a little more contrast, so chose a black & white stripe, which I hoped would provide that interesting bit of something extra!
First of all, I stitched the striped fabric to the white background, but it took up about half the space & it was too much. I only really wanted it to cover about a third of the background space. The stitching was a distraction too, so I unpicked & reapplied, this time with applifix which gave me a nice smooth background to build my layers up from.
The first layer of stems were sewn on & cut back. Call me crazy....but I really like this just as it is. Simple is good...but I continued on with my design!
Sewing on & cutting back number 2!
The next stage required two layers of fabric to form the buds. This is how it looked after cutting back the top layer.
I had to be very careful cutting back the next layer as I didn't want to catch the green stems in the blades of my scissors. Gradually the buds began to take shape.
And...drum roll please...the final result! I am very happy with the effectiveness of the simple lines & I am glad that I added the stripes to the background. They mirror the horizontal green stems, while giving contrast in both colour & direction to the buds.
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