Ella J Flowers Creative Process

I have been obsessed with flowers for as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I was fascinated by any garden I was in, wanting to know what every plant was and (when I was allowed) I would excitedly pick and examine the flowers therein.

Now in my mid-twenties, I have gathered an increasingly large collection of botanical books and have developed a hobby of collaging. In this process, having photographed my favourite images from my flower books, I set about digitally altering various individual flowers, printing out sheets of them, cutting around each one and eventually pasting them on the canvas in a variety of compositions. 

As in my design ‘Wild Meadow’, they started off with a fairly fluid look as I placed them intermittently about the canvas akin eponymously to an eclectic meadow of wild flowers (or, [honestly], as my mind fancied). After this, my method became rather scientific and methodical as I drew faint grid lines and made the flowers the exact same height. Thus, as in ‘Country Cottage’ and ‘Flower Power’, even my wild flowers were manipulated and ordered to a pleasing arrangement. 

No matter what the method employed was, completed mainly in the throws of lockdown lethargy, sitting in front of each canvas and deliberating where to place each flower became, for me, my escape. 

I hope that they may now brighten up everyone's happy places.