DIY Cheeky Roses

[BigV]

wolf, it most definitely is a very special kind of art exhibition, so the handle is entirely appropriate.

I have looked through the catalogs of the last three years' shows and found only one piece that was principally made of leather. Lots of pictures with leather, sure. I did find some toys like this, a basswood paddle for example, maybe others.

Thanks for the suggestion that I make clear that the leaves, too, are made of leather. I think I'll have to take some more photographs. I don't know if the pictures in the catalogs are the ones used for submission to the judges. For objects, they seem to have been very deliberately posed, and all on some kind of background. I saw some where the background was white and so over exposed that it just vanished, like the piece is floating in air. I don't think that suits for this one. It has texture and that means shadows.

I'm pretty happy with it. They **do** look like roses, don't they?

[BigV]

Heh... the mundies (?!) will view it on her desk at her office. Safely secured (that's a real lock) in a discrete plain brown (leather) wrapper. What they don't know, etc etc.

[Rrrraven]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

now, you wouldn't actually USE that cat of 9 roses, would you? doesn't look like it would sting very much...

The sting is all in the swing I do believe. A lot of power can make anything hurt when it hits.

[limey]

Originally Posted by classicman

How bout using a real rose laid next to or across it for scale?

I like this idea very much ...

Originally Posted by classicman

Maybe a wine glass with this wrapped around the base ...

... followed by this one.

[Stormieweather]

What about a backdrop that would emphasize the pain/pleasure, soft/hard, fragile/strong aspects of the piece? Maybe a polished piece of chrome with lace laid across it and this arranged on top? Or a granite podium sitting on a piece of black velvet and the creation slowly unfolded across it? If the show consists of only photographs of the item, maybe some artistic spotlighting, or blurring?

I dunno, can't look at the show link from work, so no idea how these things are usually displayed.

In any case, I really like your work! Much nicer than the plain old bullwhip and crop I have.

[limey]

I was thinking about the frightfully clever on many levels name of this piece the other day. It's brilliant!

[BigV]

Thanks limey! It's gratifying to find someone who finds me as dazzlingly clever as I do!

Here's my construction journal. It's the director's cut, meaning little was actually cut. Not true, fewer than half the pictures I took are included in this DIY story. Here we go.

I made a template of the petals so I could trace out some fairly regular petals over and over again, so I'd have fairly regular flowers.



Twelve of them were done in red leather. This shot only shows some of the tracings. I'd made the first few flowers freehand. They turned out on the small side, so I made these petals a lot bigger.


The extra relief at the intersection of the petals in this detail shot allows the bottom of the flower to be more compact. There will be a stack of these petals for each flower.



The thirteenth rose is a black one.

[HungLikeJesus]

I didn't read the text - are those what drives you motorboat?

Motorboat, motorboat.

[BigV]

Snip snip snip!




Stack stack stack!




Roses have sepals too! (insert groan here).




Bend it over...

[BigV]

Snip a hole for the stem.




I cut all of these freehand. They are highly variable across the bouquet.




It looks like a frog. Ribbitt!




I did the same with the leaves as I did with the petals. I cut the first ones freehand to get a feel for how I wanted them to look and adjusted accordingly for the bulk of the flowers.

[BigV]

I calculated about seven leaves per stem.




Sometimes the cutting got a little creative, but since most of the thread connecting the leaves would be woven inside the stems, this didn't seem important.




Here's how I lined up all the leaves for each of the remaining flowers to be made.




Remember that scene from American Beauty where a cloud of red rose petals rained down on the girl... that's a LOT of rose petals. So is this. Whew.

[BigV]

Stack stack stack.




Petal towers with sepal steeples.




This is a bundle of stems. I made the first one with just brown, then switched to green and brown. A big improvement. Two laces, each 1/8" wide (square actually, 1/8" wide by 1/8" thick) and six feet long for each stem.




Now, let's make a rose. Start by crossing one green and one brown lace at the center.

[BigV]

Now I add the petals.




And more petals.




Now add the sepals. Since the sepals surround the stem, I have to thread the stem strands onto it.




Slide it up and up.

[BigV]

Now it's at the base of the blossom.




Pull the stem strands tight.




And fold up the petals tightly.




Now, let's make the actual rose bud / blossom. Take the smallest, innermost petal and roll it tightly, as tightly as you can.

[BigV]

Fold up another petal and wrap it tightly around the previous petal(s).




Repeat this process for petal after petal. It is important to move the point at which the petal starts to wrap to a different spot each time so you get a staggered arrangement of the petals.




As you approach the outermost few petals, you'll see they don't wrap around the whole blossom, as they don't on a real rose. They kind of cup the inner part of the flower. To keep the petal clinging tightly to the inner petals, I use a bit of superglue. Mind your ears.




Eventually this is what the completed rose looks like.