Please also visit my other website at:
Art For Sale - Saint Michael Miniature Pen and Ink Drawings
including:
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Our Lady of Guadalupe, stippled ink on genuine sheep skin, a (finished) Work In Progress |
As war escalates around the world, please remember each day to pray for Peace.
including:
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Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, Inc.
The Society of Tempera Painters
Marians Of The Immaculate Conception
Creating a Pressed Flower Journal
True Marshmallow, preserved in the fall, 2000
Preserving your garden accomplishments for posterity, for science, or just for sharing is an easy and rewarding practice. A beautifully covered blank book full of dried pressed flowers makes a wonderful gift for a gardener friend, perhaps filling it with types of their favorite flower. I feel anyone would love such a gift, from a child interested in nature, to someone you share afternoon tea with.
Pressed flowers bring the beauty of nature into our lives, creating a timeless treasure to enjoy whenever we feel the urge. Pressed flower journals are also instrumental if your goal is to record which plants bloomed well for you. If you are interested in botanical illustration, keeping the plant as a live specimen is not always possible, and a pressed specimen will assure you have the material you need to accurately draw the plant parts. In days gone by, illustration was for the most part done from dried specimens, and the practice is continued today in botanical institutions around the world.
These instructions are for drying flowers and leaves using a traditional flower press that uses compression to flatten the item while it dries. Recently flower presses have been developed for use in a microwave oven, however I prefer the old-fashioned method. The flower press that I use is called The Nature Press. It was reasonable priced, around $12.00 U.S., and is small and convenient enough to carry into the field. See the bottom of the page for a link to a vendor for a similar type of flower press. Instructions will come with the press, but basic techniques are listed below.
Before I owned this little marvel of a press, I used heavy books to press my flowers and a stack of heavy, thick books placed on top of your flowers will work in the absence of a flower press. To use books, follow the steps below to place the flowers in between waxed paper or blotter paper, and then place them inside the pages of a book for protection. Then place at least five heavy books on the top of your flower-holding book.
To use a conventional flower press:
Supplies needed:
1. A flower press (or substitute with heavy books)
2. Waxed paper
3. Botany paste or art-quality rubber cement and an old small paint brush
4. Toothpicks might be helpful for positioning flowers
5. Index cards to record dates and names of flowers
6. A blank journal or scrapbook to save the flowers in. I use a classic hardbound artist's sketchbook as shown below on the right. They are sturdy, have quality paper, and well, I have them anyway, so they are economical for me to use. I also use fancy leather or cloth covered journals when making gift journals.
Forget-Me-Not, preserved early 2002
Step One
1. Gather the flowers or leaves you wish to press. If I am keeping a specimen for scientific or drawing purposes, I usually gather an extra flower so I can cut it apart first and separate the parts. If creating a journal just for beauty, I try to choose flowers or leaves that naturally go together. If using a flower press, carefully place the flower on top of a piece of blotter paper (supplied with the press). Care must be taken to place the specimen so that when another blotter paper goes on top, and pressure is applied, the flower or leaf will flatten in an attractive or accurate manner.
2. The layers for a press are
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wooden bottom, |
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cardboard (also supplied), |
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blotter paper, |
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specimen, |
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blotter paper, |
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cardboard, |
and then the next blotter paper, specimen, blotter paper, cardboard, etc. stacking specimens. It is best, I have found, to place one type of specimen on each blotter page, sometimes I write lightly in pencil what the flower is and the date collected. If I don't write it on the blotter paper, I keep an index card with a listing of what I have in the press.
3. When all the specimens are ready, place the wooden top as the last layer. My flower press then fastens with velcro-type straps that wrap around the two wooden pieces. The average time for pressing a flower is three weeks. During that time, I tighten the velcro-type straps every few days; as the flowers flatten out, tightening the straps continues to apply even pressure. If using books, leaving the flowers for three weeks in between waxed paper, and under the stack of books, will be sufficient.
Iris (left), and Peony (right), preserved early 2001
Step Two
Creating the journal
Sometimes I pick a "theme" for a special book. It could be something such as the garden blooms for a certain year, it could be a record of all one type of plant grown one year, or all pink flowers, etc. If making the journal for a gift, choosing a theme for the recipient is half the fun. :)
Some flowers retain their color better than others and after some practice, you will know which pink flowers really stay pink, which turn brown, etc. The length of drying, freshness of the flower when picked, and humidity in the environment will also affect the flower color retained.
I usually leave at least one or two blank pages in the front of the journal. One is a cover "leaf" as seen in printed books, and one is for a title or dedication to the recipient.
Carefully remove the flowers from the press or heavy books. They are beautifully paper-thin if everything has gone well, and this will also make them very fragile.
Place them on a page in the journal, positioning them and creating a design prior to gluing them down. This is like that axiom, "measure twice, cut once" although you aren't measuring and cutting. What you are doing is making sure you like the effect prior to making it permanent.
Botany paste is easier to work with, but either type of glue should be applied to the paper and not the flower. After placing a minimal amount of glue on the page only where the flower will go, carefully lay the flower down on top of the glue. Continue doing this until you have filled a page. I then let each full page completely dry before starting the next. Often this means placing the open journal somewhere safe for 24 hours until the page is completely dry. This ensures that working on the next page will not disrupt the first.
Continue working on pages until the book is full. Filling a whole book can be a long-term project, so it helps to plan in advance if the journal is a gift. Another option is to place flowers on every other right-handed page, leaving some pages blank for actual journal writing by the user. I write the name of the plant or flower underneath the specimen in light pencil. This not only personalizes the work, but enables you to look at the book a year later and know what flowers you grew or enjoyed.
Tie a ribbon around the finished journal and enjoy :)
Other ideas for pressed flowers:
Hand-made greeting cards
Decoupage
Framed Floral Pictures
Plant Identification Journal
I have been adding to one for years, keeping blossoms, twigs or leaves of trees, perennials, shrubs, etc. and keep these scientific records in a loose-leaf binder with each flower or specimen on a page that includes cultural information and such facts as height, width, etc. This method can also be adapted for a houseplant or other plant collection.
Links
search the main site for:
Flower Press
Botany Paste
search the main site for:
Classic Hardbound Sketchbooks
Blank Journals and Other Sketchbooks
Rubber Cement
Blank Greeting Cards
Unfinished Wooden Boxes for Decoupage
Frames and Mats
Sample Pressed Flowers
(the vertical stripes are from my scanner and not on the specimens)
African Violets, 2000
Euphorbia millii, 1999
(this plant blooms red and yellow on the same stalk, and the colors preserved well)
Pelargoniums, 2001
Forsythia (top) and florist's fern (bottom), 2001
Shasta Daisy, 2001