Following on from our blog post last week on our Arancia art print, which you can read about here, this week we are spotlighting our purely botanical print, Ficus I.
This is a continuation of our ongoing series of blog posts on each of our original prints which we started with when we opened our independent online shop. Hopefully you will get to know us a little better by the end and understand just how we get inspired and create each print.
We illustrate all of the designs we sell as prints by hand so you know that love - and patience - has gone into each one!
We will be featuring one print a week and posting lots of tempting content over on our Instagram page so please follow us over there so you don’t miss out.
Here is the Ficus I art print:
This print is simple in composition and allows the structure of the plant to take centre stage. The colours are bold and contrasting but have been used sparingly so as to not be overbearing. Set against a neutral textured background, three crisp ultramarine stems rise up and are decorated with vibrant leaves of yellow, pink and blue overlaying in a painterly style much like the variegated leaves of the Ficus Elastica Ruby (or pink ficus, or variegated Rubber Tree).
We love the playful colours of this piece and that it is a refreshing take on the standard green botanical print.
This print was inspired by our very own pink ficus which we lovingly homed a few months ago. We would still consider ourselves to be beginner-level plant parents and so anything beyond a succulent or a spider plant is touch-and-go as to whether or not it will survive the long term.
Unfortunately, we live in a space of two extremes: constant bright light one side and prevailing shadows the other side. After moving our poor little plant to and from these areas it was shedding leaves daily.
Pink Rubber Trees can be sensitive to change and, after scouring the internet, we did find that it is not uncommon for this plant to drop leaves after being moved. So moving it constantly was possibly not the best decision...
After quite a few of the leaves had dropped, the bare stems were on full display and we actually thought it looked quite nice in its own way. After some hours of sketching and trying out some variations, we arrived at our print!
We did take some photos of our recovering plant - you can see the sudden growth at the top compared to the bare stems towards the bottom!
We love the leaves themselves, the variegated variety is almost an impressionist piece all on its own. We are planning the ‘sister’ print to this own for an upcoming release which will focus more on these beautiful details.
If you happen to be having the same issue we did, moving it towards the light and watering it more seemed to do the trick.
When happy, this plant can grow up to eight feet tall indoors!
For those of you who enjoy a time-lapse, here is a short clip of the print in the making:
Although the original colours of this plant are beautiful, we wanted to experiment with this and create a print which was different to the usual green botanical prints we tend to see time and time again. You can see from the time lapse that we had the basic shape and composition of the print pretty quickly and then spent time playing around with the colours for something that worked well and was still understated enough to compliment most spaces. We are pleased with the outcome and hope that you are too!
This is a really versatile print which would look great at home in the living room, hallway or bedroom as well as in an office space. If you already embrace the plant life in your home then this would be a real stand out piece to tie in other botanical prints or indoor plants. The simple composition would also compliment a gallery wall.
This print is available on our online shop and comes in sizes A4, A3 and A2.
We love seeing how you style each of our pieces - so please do send us a photo or tag us on Instagram!
Next week we will be putting the spotlight on our Med I print.
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