That particular summer – in 2019, I was buying lots of flowers from the local shops and markets like the one at Columbia Road, near where I was living in East London. There was so much to look at and choose from including sunflowers, Sweet William, Gladioli, hydrangeas and carnations.

Not many poppies in the shops but they crept into this project from other places (I’ve always been so interested in the different shapes at various stages of their lifecycle; the hard, almost ceramic seed case and the ephemeral, delicate flower).

I’d put the flowers in a vase on my kitchen table and initially draw them with sharpies, which felt more like painting. As a personal project I wanted to break out of a creative rut and take the pressure off by giving to a more immediate, less pressured and more intuitive style of drawing – albeit a bit naive.

As time went on I began looking at a lot of William Morris and Liberty prints, mainly for their use of floral motifs, and tried to work out the construction of the design and pattern in order to make my own. I also made paper art flowers. It was really enjoyable to explore a process instead of trying to make something good or focussing on a finished product. You never know what the result will be!

© Alexandra Noel – All rights reserved. 28th December 2022