The Art of Pressed Flowers and Leaves - Kew Online Course

There are a few things you need to think about when deciding what flowers to use for your pressings. In this video, Bex goes through some considerations to help you find exactly what you need.

Now you have selected the flowers you plan to use for your artwork, let’s take a look at how to preserve them using your flower press.

In this video, Bex opens a pressing from about four weeks ago that she started at the height of summer. As she reveals her results, we’ll look at what has been successful, and find out a few ways to deal with anything that has not done so well.

We’re going to start our art projects with some simple cards. Here, Bex uses white card – you may also want to experiment with off-white, Kraft brown or even black card to see the different effects you can achieve. Work with the card open and flat, folding it once the glue has dried completely.

For this project, we’re going to create an artwork that replicates the sort of scene you might see if you stepped outside your backdoor into a garden or meadow. The flower choice and placement is really important here as the flowers interact where their stems intertwine.

We’re going to look at a more scientific style of design for our next piece. Based on the botanical studies you would find in Kew's herbarium, these pieces are created to show how the plant would grow in the wild.

Our final project is created on another sheet of art paper. We’re going to think more about layout and design here, creating a more abstract and free pattern than before and covering the full sheet with these delicate flower heads and leaves.

Hopefully you’re really happy with how your pressed flower artworks have turned out and you’re keen to put them on display. In this final video, Bex goes through a few ideas of how you can do just that to keep your work looking its best for years to come.