Today’s inspiration – wattle! And how to borrow from nature.

by Dina | Feb 16, 2013 | 

 One of the easiest methods to create a new design is to borrow from nature! The enormous combinations of colours and shapes are already preformed in nature and therefore creating art which emulates the key ingredients of nature quickly resonate with the human mind. By borrow, I don’t mean copy nature in botanical detail, what I mean is select its core ingredients to trigger the mind into familiarity or even to bring fond memories into the subconscious.Hard to follow? Well let’s use wattle as today’s inspiration.Firstly lets break wattle down:

• Colors – bright yellow, greyish greens and brownish twigs.
• Shapes – fluffly balls, long slender leaves, long slender twigs, weeping structure, massive fusion of fluff.
• Memories – Australia, childhood locations, streets, rows and forests.
• Emotions – bright, happy, Aussie, botanical

 

 
 

 

Children under the Wattle tree by David Boyd, 1924 Now lets create a story board grabbing various elements in any combination. Below I am currently working on two projects:A wattle braceletFor the bracelet I have grabbed the colors green and gold and sprinkled in some twig tones. I used ball shapes and a few twigs.

Beads for wattle bracelet Black Cockatoos mural for my patio.I will do a complete post on this mural but right now I am at the stage of creating the nest impression and decided to embed it with native flowers  I wanted to bring wattle from my front yard up onto the patio by creating small beaded wattle flowers .. going with the traditional green and gold.

 Turning inspiration into jewellery.So far, we have just been inspired by wattle here are some example of wattle story boards used to create beautiful bead work. Again we see more green and gold in my macramé and just pure gold the NZ jewellery below. I love the ball earrings which say fluffy wattle even though they are hard plastic.

Macramé wattle necklace by Dina Goebel

Wattle bead and silk necklaces from NZ artists

Wattle earrings at Everingham  Bringing wattle into home decor.Wattle brings Australiana into the open and provides an open, fresh airiness reminiscent of spring. You can either copy wattle botanically or use the key ingredients to brighten your home. Here a mustard yellow is used with wood and sky blue for a fresh outdoor feel.

Home decorating with wattle

 Wattle the Victorian floral emblem .. which we can eat!

Australian wattle day for children badges

Wattle seed creme brulee  Wattle wedding cake 

 
 

 
 Wattle for art sake.There is plenty of wonderful Australian wattle inspired art out there too! Nothing wrong with mixing the colors up or using just black and white.
 

Wattle fabric in plum by Ink and Spindle Melbourne

wattle sculpture circa 1939
 I hope you enjoy my inspiration from wattle.ALWAYS THE ARTISTDina