Lets talk about containers? Look what I found?

When you think of flower arrangements, do you think of traditional floral designs with flowers evenly spaced around the centre line? Or do you think of a more modern style of arrangement with lots of negative space, statement flowers and unique or unusual shapes? Today's video is going to talk about at least 10 differences between a modern and a contemporary style arrangement. If this is something you would like to understand in more detail, then keep watching today's tutorial. Welcome back. Now in today's video I'm going to look at comparing two very different styles of arranging. This one I would class as a very traditional all-around posy that would sit beautifully on the centre of a table. I would class this as traditional because it is a clear outline shape. It has a very traditional set of flowers in it. I also have some accessories in form of a bow and this little novelty pick. It's a very strong geometric circular shape and the flowers are evenly spaced over a centre line making it symmetrical and very traditional. So what do you need to look out for when you're comparing two different designs or planning on creating a design for yourself? Now I'm going to get rid of this one just to my side because that is a really quite modern and contemporary style and all of the arrangements that we're looking at in this video today are designs that you will see or have already seen on the YouTube channel and one thing to bear in mind is a lot of these arrangements were made a week or maybe 10 days ago so the flower quality isn't looking brilliant. Don't comment on the quality, I know it's not the best but it's an ideal opportunity for me to store up a few arrangements here and compare the two different styles. I'll start by talking about traditional floral designs and I would say that these are two examples of a traditional style of arranging. This one is a typical symmetrical triangle where the design is balanced on either side and you have a repetition where the flowers and foliages that I used on the left are repeated on the right and this style here is exactly the same. So generally a traditional arrangement is symmetrical and it is balanced on both sides but we do of course have an L shape and we have an asymmetric triangle, we also have crescents that can be taller on one side than the other but the general guideline is that the traditional arrangement has that solid outline shape and it could be a triangle like this, it could be a circle or a posy like this arrangement but with traditional work it is a lot more structured, formal and patterned. More often than not we use traditional flowers in the arrangement as well and those would be things like spray carnations, chrysanthemums, stock, liatris, roses and carnations and gerberas or you might want to add in some garden flowers like bluebells or forget-me-nots depending on the time of the year but traditional work is flowers that are easily accessible, flowers from your florist shop, from your corner shop or from your local supermarket and the designs are normally inspired by cultural and historical traditions and can be a little bit more creative and artistic and that will be down to the individual arranger but the guidelines suggest there is a clear outline shape whether it's a triangle, a circle, an L shape, an unbalanced triangle, it could be a line arrangement which is very vertical or horizontal and it includes flowers from the three different categories that I've already talked about in the previous video which I can link here in the card so you can pop back and look at that. So traditional arrangements generally have line flowers which would be something like the stock, they have round flowers which can be anything from a chrysanthemum bloom to a rose to a carnation to a gerbera and then they have filler flowers and that could be a spray carnation that could also be referred to as a transitional flower, it has little bits and pieces added in so it could be jip, september flower like this one here forget-me-nots or bluebells and we look to use flowers from those three different categories so a round shape, a line flower or a filler flower or a transitional flower and that is carried through into the foliage as well so we look for traditional foliages, small leafed greenery works better in a design that's this sort of size suitable for your ordinary home but if you're going a little larger maybe for your local church or for a wedding then you want to pick slightly larger foliage but not necessarily anything that's too modern looking, we're looking for garden type foliages like privets, hebe, conifers, pitosporums, lots of greenery with a small leaf. It's normally what I refer to on a video as a fussy foliage so anything that's small and dainty, anything that has a pattern on it is quite often used in floral design and you mass it into the arrangement rather than use it as a statement piece like we'll see in one of the more modern styles when I compare the two styles. More often than not a flower arrangement that's traditional is in a monochrome colour harmony like this one here or it could be a pastel colour combination but they're normally a harmonious colour selection and quite often colours that lay alongside one another on the colour wheel or colours that match and blend for that particular season. Quite often with a modern design we have less texture in the greenery because it can make the design look quite messy and very fussy but that style sometimes comes from the individual arranger and not necessarily from the rules. If you haven't learned your elements and principles of design then one of the important elements in traditional work is space and we don't have a great deal of negative space that's a gap or a hole for those of you who love traditional work. Gaps, holes and spaces are generally filled in in a traditional floral design like this so that you only see a really clear outline and you don't see any negative space so you see a clear outline to create the shape and every area is filled in which makes the design full of positive space and positive space is when there is no gaps or holes visible in your floral design. I've probably mentioned this already but traditional work is normally very classic, quite formal and symmetrical which is balanced on either side. It uses the one-third two-thirds rule where your container measures one-third of the overall arrangement and you double the height of that container to create the height of your arrangement. So if we look at this arrangement here we turn it slightly to the side, if I doubled the height of my container here at the bottom that's going to give me the rough proportions for the size of my arrangement but in contrast in modern work we use a different set of rules and guidelines. Now I've mentioned that we use the one-third two-thirds rule but we can also double the size of our container so for a posy that might sit in the centre of a table we're looking to almost add the same height as the arrangement on top so it doesn't have to be a tall arrangement like this, it can be a squatter lower down arrangement. Most traditional arrangements have their stems that radiate away from the centre point especially if it's something like a posy that sits in the centre of a table all stems radiate from the centre. There is of course that parallel style that became very fashionable in the 80s which is still categorised as a modern design although it's been with us for about 50 years and that has a stem placement that is parallel and that means that the stems are placed alongside one another in the foam rather than radiating away from the centre. With traditional work like this you quite often find accessories added in, bows, candles, figurines, hearts for Valentine's Day, chicks and bunnies for Easter and floral accessories at Christmas time. Flowers are very much evenly spaced out in a traditional design so if you imagine a centre line we're looking to have the same amount of flowers on the left and the right, same colours on the left and the right and the same textures on the left and the right. Traditional arrangements are often full and lush and abundant they can be densely packed with flowers and they're seen in a very traditional surrounding so your traditional family home they might be in traditional commercial properties and buildings, local churches and more often than not a traditional arrangement is given as a gift to somebody. Quite often they're paired up with classic urns, fabrics, candles, different types of ribbons and accessories and they might be arranged alongside an identical flower arrangement or a second placement design if you do floral art. Most of the traditional designs are inspired by cultural or historical traditions and they're quite often inspired by particular eras in time so you might have a Victorian inspired design or Georgian inspired arrangement, you might have something inspired from the 1970s that has a very brown, beige or orange container whereas something inspired from the Art Deco or the Art Nouveau era will be a lot more minimalist with some curved lines for Art Nouveau or some straight lines for Art Deco and if you're interested in learning more about historical designs then add it into the comment box below because I can always look at doing a series of videos where we look at times that have really influenced floral design. Traditional designs generally have one focal flower which is the largest or the choice flower in the arrangement and they're designed for that formal or classic setting. So two traditional arrangements in front of me, they have focal flowers, they have an outline shape, they are full of positive space, they have harmonious colour combinations or a monochrome one if we look at the all white, they're heavily patterned, have a clear outline shape, the stems all radiate away from a centre point and generally they're inspired by times gone by. In complete contrast, if we get to compare a more modern design we're looking at a different set of rules. Quite often a modern or contemporary design is asymmetrical so we don't have a centre line and we're not balancing our flowers off on either side. This could be classed as free form, free flowing, modern or contemporary. It's definitely minimalist and simple and you're making sure that each flower in this type of arrangement speaks for itself and it's not hidden by lots of fussy flowers, lots of filler flowers and different types of accessories that are going to detract away from the natural beauty of the individual flowers. So modern or contemporary designs would fall under the category of abstract or minimalist. The shape can be unconventional and we could even make this design far more abstract and take the design in a different dimension. More often than not you would pick a single statement flower to create the floral design and get that modern look whether it's protea or stulitzia, it could be anterinum, it could be anthuriums or you could use something a bit more traditional like a chrysanthemum bloom or a gerbera or even a magnificent rose but what you're looking to do is to select a flower that can make a statement and really stand out from the crowd and if you don't have access to fresh flowers then think about using succulents or an unusual plant that you might have in your garden and use it instead of your fresh flower. There is very little use of a filler flower like jip or september flower, if it is used in a design then it is usually grouped together for dramatic impact and if you think about your elements and principles of design and your shapes that we use in floral design, we use far more line material in this type of arrangement and shapes and three-dimensional form rather than those fussy flowers that we often use more readily in a traditional floral design. Modern arrangements make use of textured material that contrast against one another and is arranged so that you can see all the different types of material rather than concentrating on creating a shape and filling in with as many flowers as you can. Flat textured greenery is often used and single individual leaves and individual flower heads are used again for dramatic effect. Bold colours or clashing colours are often used, very vibrant colour combinations are often mixed together but you will still have arrangements where you use one colour so a monochromatic colour harmony of all greens or all whites is still often is still presented in more modern floral design. Visual texture is really important whether it's a shiny surface like the leaf here at the back or whether it's a more rustic matte finish of the twigs that are extending out either side. Grouping and blocking of flowers is important and very rarely do you see man-made accessories in a traditional design. You might see some dried leaves, some twigs, you might see driftwood or unusual seed heads but very rarely do you see those traditional accessories that you'll find in a florist shop or in the accessory aisle of a supermarket. So there'll be no easter bunnies, no birthday balloons, no ornaments or accessories added in to modern work. What you will see a lot of in a more modern design is plenty of negative space and this is quite often where beginner flower arrangers go wrong. You have to really understand that the stem of a flower is just as important in a modern floral design. It becomes part of the design, it's not something to be hidden with lots of greenery or gypsophilia or something that's very fussy and you have to learn to appreciate and love the negative space within this arrangement. It's not for everybody, not everybody likes to leave gaps and flowers in your arrangement. If you've been taught to arrange flowers from a traditional arranger who doesn't understand the rules behind this particular type of design then you tend to overfill it and overstuff and you go from those simple clear lines, those very minimalist placements to something that becomes a lot more traditional. Modern work like this can have parallel stems like this one or it can have radial stems or it can have stems placed in a diagonal position and you can mix all three in an arrangement as well, you just need to have one type of position that is more dominant than the others and in this arrangement it's that parallel grouping that is really clear. So that negative space is important in a modern design and we create that by having gaps within the placement of those twisted branches that come out on either side and we have plenty of gaps in between the flowers and in between the flower groupings. So colour blocking, flower grouping is important in a modern design and this one uses the three five eighths rule to create our proportion and that works very differently from our traditional one third two thirds and what we look to do is to have gaps in between our flowers that represent internal triangles and the best way of understanding it is to wait for this video comes out because I explain the placement between the flowers in more detail and if you follow the sequence it will give you the proportional rules that you need to create this type of design and we can arrange with flowers in groups of threes or in groups of twos or in clusters on their own. Don't panic if you're looking at this arrangement and thinking she's got two flowers in there and you're not you're meant to use two flowers in a design, well you can in a more modern style of arranging. So I would describe this as a fairly minimalist design, it's free form, it's free flowing, it's more experimental and more artistic than maybe a very traditional triangle and this is more influenced by modern trends, fashion, interior deco, modern art galleries, modern paintings, if you think about sculptures and modern works of art then this is where you'll find inspiration to create a more contemporary style of arrangement and if I finish off by saying this type of arrangement suits a modern interior so it might be for an art gallery or a modern hairdressers or beauticians, it could go in a fancy restaurant on the reception desk but it would work equally as well in a more modern church or place of worship where you maybe don't have those traditional proportions that you would have in your local church. So I'm hoping that that helps you understand the differences between traditional designs and a more modern and contemporary style and what you need to do is not mix the two groups together because then a very modern design like this with clean lines, negative space becomes very messy and overcrowded and it becomes much more traditional and my own personal preference is that if you're going to make a traditional design like this then you use those traditional flowers, you use lots of filler flower and lots of greenery to create this particular design. My personal issue is when very modern structured flowers like a Strelitzia or an Anthurium are crammed into a traditional design like this and you really don't see the beauty of that amazing and usual flower. If you haven't already subscribed then now is the time to do it otherwise you miss out on lots of information. Ask as many questions as you went in the comment box and as usual I look forward to seeing you for the next tutorial. Thanks for watching and goodbye for now.