I just had a go at the not very genteel art of flower pounding. The results are very interesting and quite variable. This is a method to transfer the shape and pigment from flowers and leaves to paper or cloth.
I had never heard of it until recently and then I heard about it from 2 different sources in 2 days - funny how that happens! It was fun, quick and very noisy!
I started by picking a range of flowers and leaves from my garden - lots to choose from.
I took a piece of thin white cotton, laid it on a piece of wood on a hard floor, with a tea-towel under the wood to stop it slipping. I selected flowers and taped them one at a time on the back of the cotton. Sometime I had to cut off the stalk or most of the back of the flower. Sometimes they stayed together and sometimes the fell apart - it was a learning thing! Sometimes I used a cocktail stick to help gently spread out any curling petals as I stuck down the tape.
Then - IMPORTANT - turn the cloth over and hit with a hammer, medium weight blows. Once the image was transferred peel off the tape and move on to the next one. I used a kind of clear parcel tape which worked really well on the cloth but was too sticky for paper.
I was intrigued by the look of the flowers after pounding and stuck them all down on paper.
I saw online that you should iron the cloth to set the images. I don't know what I am going to do with this experiment - obviously you can stitch into it or use Inktense pencils to draw in extra details.
Some flowers and leaves worked much better than others. The flowers with papery leaves such as field poppies, california poppies, cosmos, cornflowers etc worked the best. Pansies were really good as they had dual colours that were retained. Flowers that were tube shaped (Agapanthus, Crocosmia etc) seemed to be fleshier than daisy or more open types and didn't make a clear image. Pinks sometimes went brown. Bright reds and dark oranges usually looked like a blood stain! Blues usually kept their colour. Very thin leaves worked brilliantly but some hairy tough leaves didn't work at all. The Heuchera and burgundy leaves worked well, as did a soft fern.
After publishing this post I came down the next morning to this sight:
A dahlia in a vase had shed its petals overnight. This is not a problem, I thought - this is an opportunity!
A rather beautiful one:
