Sepals as Support,

Or, 3 gauges of wire in french-beaded snapdragons.

This post documents my experiments with wire gauges using Virginia Osterland's pattern (more or less) for snapdragons.

3 snapdragons blossoms made with 28, (magenta) 26, (purple) and 24 (black) ga wire, respectively.

Stamens were derived from the petals, reducing support for heavy petals---this part of the pattern is from Carol Benner Doelp's snapdragon pattern, which is quite a bit different. In fact, I have three different patterns (or did, before I took the Osterland back to the library---really, I must buy this book, now that Dover's reprinted it) and they all use different approaches. The Osterand uses a double basic to make the bottom half of the flower as you see in the purple blossom all the way to the right; the Doelp a split basic; and Dalene Kelly, with what is perhaps the most innovative approach, cup shaped components, normally reserved for flower centers, for both top and bottom components. Kelly also uses a variation of this trick in her bleeding heart pattern, and as I'm becoming more familiar with the medium's toolbox, I'm starting to see things in some of my books that I originally glossed over because I didn't know enough to catch the hints.

Calices (what I always called sepals) were made with either 30 ga red coated copper or green coated 24 ga wire.

The 30 calices did not provide much support---just barely enough for purple, and not needed for black. But the magenta blossom was so floppy I made a 24 gauge calyx, with more beads (9 instead of 7) ---obstensibly to make `leaves' of calyx longer, but extra beads were taken up by greater thickness of wire. The heavier wire calyx actually serves to support blossom.

I started with 24 ga black wire because that's what I had when I began this project; but after my parawire order arrived, I was actually willing to use some of my other, older colored wire, because I now had plenty.[1] The 24 ga wire was hard on wrists and hands[2] , and very visible; the thinner stuff kinda floppy. 26 seemed to be the happy medium. Experimenting with wire gauges is an important part of the process.

file created, initial notes, & photo 20080430, most[3] of post 8may08.

[1]oh, the irritation of the hoarding kink...

[2]at least for a beginner---used the same wire yesterday, and was fine, with several more flowers' worth of experience under my belt

[3]yay, footnotes implemented, now let me abuse 'em:)