Understanding how to achieve certain shapes in a vase begins with looking closely at your materials and assessing how the whole plant looks and behaves, in the soil, at the source. Close observation of the natural world allows us to absorb the subtleties of plants and flowers – heights and breadths, the angles they grow at, whether they spread of climb, clamber up through others, clump together in dense clusters, self-seed and pop up at odd intervals here and there.

For our first element we’ll ease into our creative practice with a sweet little bowl design, starting with a sphere of chicken wire moulded for support, and layering leaves and dainty stems.

You can use all parts of a plant for decorative or practical purposes, not just the flowers. Roots, bulbs, stems, leaves, blades, buds and seedheads can all be useful and beautiful when included in the right way. Often the addition of something unpredictable, even a little ugly – like crossed stems (supposedly a no-no in traditional ‘spiral’ bouquets but evident in nature everywhere) - can all bring character and a sense of naturalism to an arrangement.

For this session the ‘hand vase’ technique allows us to honour the natural forms and tendencies of the ingredients, gently but purposefully layering and grouping the floral material before tying off and ribboning for an elegant hand-held bouquet.

This is an exercise in close observation, discovering the intricate subtleties of colour in the flowers and leaves we have selected, from petals and thorns to veins, stamens and buds. We will experiment and explore the inclusion of contrasting temperatures to enliven, disrupt, tone down or introduce an element of surprise.

In this session we will style a range of table flowers with different props, looking at the natural materials to develop a harmonious colour palette for each design.

As a creative exercise we will take inspiration from the 18th century paintings of the Dutch and Flemish Masters who used the vanitas genre to evoke the fleeting nature of life on earth, capturing the ephemeral beauty of flowers and fruit. We will create Dutch Masters-inspired arrangements that capture this precise moment in time, celebrating the quirks, imperfections and signs of ageing - mottled leaves, fading petals - that are evidence of a natural life cycle.

In a separate photography session we’ll be exploring the effects of tone as we photograph our Dutch Masters arrangements against dark and moody backdrops. Using natural light we will examine the effect of depth - how lighter materials advance and darker flowers recede - play with props like pearlescent shells and edit arrangements in situ to capture the most dramatic image.

As with the previous week’s session there is no need to have a professional camera or equipment or any prior knowledge of photography - a smartphone camera will suffice and we’ll be covering the basics of exposure and framing during this creative and playful session.

Without space, we can lose sight of individual flowers as they visually merge together in an arrangement. Leaving space is a simple concept. Intentionally doing so, particularly when you have lots of lovely materials to choose from, is a challenging exercise in precise placement and restraint.

For this session, a simple vase holding a pinholder provides the basis for an asymmetric, massed arrangement utilising a limited number of ingredients. Every stem will be assessed and added or removed with a focus on accommodating negative space.

This session will be led by the brilliant Alice Donadoni of Mora Studio.

We’ll begin by discussing what constitutes a worthy ingredient (why do we revere a rose and dismiss a buttercup?) and the opportunities presented by an anti-hierarchical approach to produce by cultivating a naturalistic growing space.

Taking inspiration from Albrecht Durer’s exquisite painting ‘A Piece of Turf’ (1503) we’ll focus on distilling the essence of the garden or a particular landscape in a shallow, linear container, explore the presence of line as design element. This session is all about capturing the beautiful disorder of the natural world with precise realism in low level arrangements that appear to be growing. 

On our final afternoon we will plan and build an installation with a specific focus on texture.

In naturalistic displays texture often contributes to the essence of seasonality in a design - late spring is frothy, late summer fruity. We’ll explore ways in which texture can add character and individuality to a design and to heighten the ambience of a setting.