hobbies
Design Elements
Colour, shape, texture, and space are the raw materials with which floral
designers work. A basic understanding of how these elements affect a design
is essential to creating satisfying arrangements.
Colour Wheel
- Colour is the most important
element of design and must be carefully chosen to create visually appealing
arrangements. The four basic color schemes are those that have been
proven to be most pleasing to the human eye.
- Monochromatic: results from using
various intensities of only one colour.
- Complementary: uses colours (such
as blue and orange) that are directly opposite each other on the colour
wheel. This scheme provides the highest possible contrast.
- Adjacent: use of three adjacent
colours creates particularly vibrant combinations.
- Triadic: intensities of three
colours equidistant apart must be chosen with care to make this scheme
work well.
In addition to hue (actual colour), the effect of value (dark and light)
must be kept in mind. Darker shades will appear to recede, while lighter
tints of the colours will seem closer.
Two good investments for anyone seriously interested in Flower arranging
are a full colour wheel and a book on colour theory which will include
much more detailed information than given here.
- SHAPE refers to both the overall
shape of the arrangement, which is determined by its style, and the
forms of the Flowers and foliage included in it. The main point to remember
is that lack of variety results in monotony and too many different shapes
create confusion.
- TEXTURE is primarily tactile
but can also be discerned visually. We see the differences between rough
and smooth, coarse and fine, soft and hard - all contrasts that provide
interest in a design.
- SPACE, properly planned within
an arrangement, helps to isolate its features and lets us appreciate
them before our eyes move on. It provides (in effect) a series of necessary
visual resting places.
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