New Work in Progress- Polymer Clay Flower Garden

My newest polymer clay project is a flower garden sculpture, and I'm creating it in honor of my grandmother, who passed away last May.  Gramma always loved her flowers, and I took good care of them for her.  For her birthday I would always pick her a bouquet of daffodils and hyacinths, the first flowers to bloom in her yard each spring.  Each flower I'm sculpting has a special signifigance to Gramma.  This is the beginning of the sculpture.

I started by prebaking the white fence, which had wire running through it for added strength.  I set the baked fence into the clay of my base, then started adding rose vines and rose leaves.

Here you can see I've added most of the leaves on the rose vines and started on two Hydrangea bushes.  Every one of these leaves was cut out one by one and thinned and shaped by hand.  I know this is going to be a very time consuming piece.  This sculpture has a lot of meaning for me, and I plan to do the best job I can.

Now lots of pretty red roses have been added.  Each of these flowers is unique and was sculpted by hand.  Gramma has always had red roses growing in the back yard, and they would get absolutely full of blooms in early summer.  I'd pick her big bouquets of pretty red roses so she could enjoy them in the house.

Now I've started adding the blue Hydrangea flowers.  Gramma had a Hydrangea plant right next to the front door.  That was the one plant she was able to take care of herself, for the most part.  She used to take small buckets of water and make sure her Hydrangea always had plenty of water.  Of course once I moved in I made sure all the plants and flowers were well taken care of.  Gramma loved her plants, but she wasn't physically able to take care of them.  She had bad arthritis ever since I was a child.  It made her happy to know that her plants were being taken care of though.

I created the Hydrangea flowers by attaching lots of tiny blue flower shapes to balls of clay.  The effect is very realistic.  It really helps that I'm very familiar with all the flowers I'll be sculpting.  I see these plants on a daily basis, and enjoy taking care of them.  They're like family ;-)

And this is where I'm at right now.  The roses are finished, and the Hydrangeas have plenty of big beautiful blooms.  I think I'll add some daffodils and irises next.  With some of these flowers I'll have to figure out how to sculpt them as I go.  I've been spending a lot of time studying the flowers in the yard very closely to see what shapes they're composed of and how they're put together. 

Stay tuned to see how this piece progresses! =)

-Michelle of CreativeCritters