Botanical Bas-relief Workshop: no sand, but clay, gypsum, and flowers.

This month I learned a new art technique called botanical bas-relief. It was so nice and relaxing to do, so I thought I would share it here, even though it's not sand related.

Here are the steps we went through: First, we got a piece of clay. We had to knead it to the approximate shape we wanted our artwork to be. It can be any shape; it doesn't really matter. My friend wanted an irregular shape, reminding her of the shapes of the Dali liquid clock from that famous painting "The Persistence of Memory." I wanted to make just a circle.

Then we had to roll the clay like a dough into a flat panel. We were instructed to maintain the even thickness of the panel and make it the size we wanted. We made it about 24 cm in diameter.

The next step is the most interesting one: laying out the design. We had a good amount of items to choose from, as our teacher brought a nice bouquet of spring flowers and dried folliage. The tricky part is that your top layer of flowers is going to be the background of the artwork when it's ready, and you need to consider it when you are crossing the stems. It took some time to imagine the composition kind of inside out, but I think we did great in the end.

Then we press the flowers into the base one by one using a roller. Some of the flowers need to be spread out a little, and some of them need to be squished for a better result.

Then we gently remove each flower from the clay, create a border, and fill the shape with lyquid gypsum. It takes a while to dry, so we could see the result only a couple days later.

But when we saw it, we couldn't believe how well it turned out. To me, it looks like it was stolen from an ancient temple or a palace.Here is my artwork.

Here is the artwork done by my friend

Gypsum was covered with white acrylic paint, but we were told that we could color it. Some people do it, but I personally think it would take away from the simple elegance of the composition.
I really enjoyed this art form and the overall experience. During the process, you get to work with so many materials and textures; it's so meditative and immersive I cannot even describe. 100% would do it again. I can totally recommend this art form for people with no art background, as it doesn't require any art skills; you can just follow your heart, choose the flowers you like, and have fun.