2015 WWPFG Conference in Charleston, South Carolina

In this November I was invited to teach at regular conference of World Wide Pressed Flower Guild that was held in Mariott hotel, Mount Pleasant (Charleston, SC).
It was my first visit to US and coference as well. And for me as teacher, this class was first real, not on-line class in the guild. Of course I was exciting so much.

At last I have met in person those people which I knew for my on-line workshops, guild competitions, etc. Nice to meet you, all my petal friends!
Mila, Lisa, Jacki, Denise, Kate, Barb, Loretta, Sally, Hendrica and dear Chinese ladies! I was so happy to see everyone!

Mila and me

We started first day with Denise's class and learned to make initial/number cards. I've made this for mom.

 Then we learned encaustic technique with Mila Garro. It was very interesting to get fantastic images with hot wax. 

I had fun. My experiments

Next class was by Xianghuan Liu from China. She taught to make decorative work with lotus flowers and gilded background. I liked to work with gold flakes.

First part of my class was in second day. The task of the class was depicting realictic water reflections for different subjects. In this part I have demonstrated how I glue the sky, make the foliage and depict distant trees, house and shore. I hope it was very useful for all to see how I work with tweezers to make the foliage of tree, 

Then all practiced

After lunch Mila Garro has shown how to work with pond scam.
Then we did the landscape using soaked scam for depicting tree branches.

Next Kate Chu taught to use contour stikers for making beautiful butterflies. And Betty Green has shown how she does flower fairies.

My picture

In last day we did nice picture with cute petal lambs by Li Wang from Beijing, China. Then after lunch my students continued to work with their landscapes. Of course we had not enough time to finished the picture but I hope everyone has understood how to cut strips for depicting water and reflections. And I will see the artworks completed soon.

Finally we had flower exchange. It was so joyful thanks to Jacki and Denise.

And these are cards by Guoyo Zhao that I got for gift exchange

Thanks to all who worked and organized the conference and Mila for hosting and translating to English. I liked downtown and historic places of Charleston

 and specially loved sunny November weather here! This time already winter is in my city in Russia. And here we were swimming in ocean! 

     Also I  thank my husband Vlad for the trip and assistance in English. 

     Wish everyone to enjoy new techniques and ideas and hope to meet again one day!

Last year's leaves

Spring came early this year in my area and snow is almost melted already. So it is time to stock up with very useful plant material. These are dead leaves that have been laying under snow for all wintertime.
They are dirty and unsightly

But I can say that it is one of my most favorite materials. Having laid under snow the leaves become gentle and flexible and you may simply cut off  from them narrow strips with scissors to make tree branches, blades of grass, etc. Also the leaves from under snow are good material for depicting the bark of trees since they have a lot of  brown shades. Often last year's leaves have many dark spots on them and look like natural bark patterns too.

    

You can make great stones from these leaves as well

Sometime in the fall the trees shed their leaves of green color. They keep this color through to spring. You can use those leaves for depicting a grass or some marsh plants:

Pick up the leaves in the spring. They have different colors from light beige till dark brown and almost black. And then all leaves have various texture. For example, the leaves of maple (Acer platanoides) and ones of linden tree (Tilia)

  

There are times when some insects eat off fallen leaves. Then natural skeleton leaves come in. That is very useful material too. 

  

You can do monochrome artworks from them. They are applicable for making winter trees, shadows, some distant subjects. 

This is winter landscape by artist Tatyana Berdnik (Kiev, Ukraine). She used those skeleton leaves here

and artist Tatyana Sokolova (Saint Petersburg, Russia)  used the same material for her winter scene

If you will blanch skeleton leaves, it is possible to use them for making transparent curtains, clothes, etc.

Well, you need to soak your dirty leaves collected in water for a time. Then rinse off all dirt from them. Dry the leaves with paper towel and put under some weight or into a press as usually. Let them dry entirely and try to work with this great material. You will like it!
Finally very important point  is the color of last year's leaves will not turn in time. It means your artwork will have very long life.