Pressed Flower Art: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft (Heritage Crafts Today Series)
by W. Eugene Burkhart Jr.
Book Summary Information
Author: W. Eugene Burkhart Jr.Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-10
ISBN: 0811703193
Number of pages: 128
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Book Reviews of Pressed Flower Art: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft (Heritage Crafts Today Series)
Book Review: EXCELLET AND HELPFUL WORK. WONDERFUL ART FORM.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best designed and easy to use books, for its purpose, I'm familiar with. It is a joy to work with.
Now I will be the first to agree with one reviewer here that this work may well be intended, and indeed be more helpful to the beginner than the more experienced, but that is just fine by me. Everyone has to start somewhere, and to be quite frank, the old saying that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks is a complete myth and a saying that should be scrapped, as it has been disproven so many times.
I was sort of raised in a world of flowers and greatly influence by a grandmother who not only was an absolute master gardener, in the Victorian sense of the word, but she had the gardens to prove it. I had a mother that had me collecting leaves and plants and pressing and drying them from a very early age. In recent years I have become fascinated with the collecting techniques of the early collectors of the Victorian Era; Darwin, Hooker, Huxley, Lyell, Wallace and so many others. I have also been photographing wild flowers and plants for more years than I care to admit.
This past summer I helped one of my grandsons in creating a leaf collection, pressing, drying and mounting it, for school and I sort of caught the bug again.
This 159 page book is an absolute wealth of information. From listing and explaining the various basic tools needed, to drying techniques, it is all here. The majority of the book is filled with pictures of hundreds of specimens and what they will look like when properly pressed and dried. Now my primary interest at this point is the making botanicals, i.e. the preservation and display of the entire plant, bloom, foliage, root and all. This is no simple trick and if you do not believe me...try it. While this work did not give me all the answers I needed, it certainly gave me many and sent me in the right direction for those that it failed to address.
This work does address methodology of using mixed media when you get into the area of creating actual pieces of art and offers up some very creative ideas the reader may not have thought of him or her self. The wire binding allows the book to lay flat while using it and the covers are quite heavy and a very high quality gloss paper has been used. The photographs are wonderful and the directions are extremely precise and easy to follow. It dose explain the process of using a microwave rather than time to dry your plants and flowers, something that at first offended something deep within me, but like all old dogs, I suppose I will have to learn to give up some of my long held prejudices. Hey, it improves the color of the final product which is something that appeals to me.
This is an art form that has been with us for thousands of years and needs to be with us longer; let's not loose bits of our heritage through neglect.
Personal Note: The only complaint I have with this work is that I wish the author had given about a page and a half rant on ethical collecting practices. People need to take care of when, where and how not to collect. Many of our wild flowers and plants are endangered now, and it is not a good thing to go romping through the fields and woods indiscriminately ripping flowers and plants up. I recently went to a wild flower preserve (prairie flowers) to do some photographing and discovered one couple digging away like crazed gophers in order to collect "wild flowers" for their garden at home. I fear I had words with them. I fear they may have stories to tell their grandchildren of their encounter with the bearded hillbilly camera swinging wild man they encountered while in the wilds of the Ozarks. My carefully nurtured fence row of Missouri Bittersweet, a plant that is literally being harvested to death by the "craft people" is dead and gone now, simply because of drive by massacres from these people. Folks, take care of what we have or we will not have it much longer.
Anyway, this is a wonderful little book for both beginners and for old pros alike. I do highly recommend it!
Don Blankenship
The Ozarks
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