On a recent Pinterest search I discovered The Hammered Flower by Michelle Moore designs. Michelle has created pieces of clothing and art using the hammered flower technique. Her items on Pinterest and Instagram are simply beautiful and inspiring.

The actual process of hammering flowers onto cloth and fabric requires a pre treatment of an alum wash to improve colour and longevity. I however wanted to try this technique on paper. I choose watercolour paper for this application.

My Mom brought me some of her pansies to give it a try. The process was quite simple and the results were amazing. I simply lay the flowers on the water colour paper one at a time. I then covered the pansy with a piece of doubled over paper towel and then used my hammer. It was easy enough to pull back the paper towel to see what spots still needed to be done. There were a few spots that I had missed but I just had to put the paper towel back down again and repeat the hammering.

The exact flower shape and colour transferred onto the water colour paper and then I just had to carefully peel off the pounded flower to discover the print. A recommendation would be to use a pair of fine tweezers to remove the flower remnants as to not smudge your work. It was so exciting to see how well this worked! I am hoping to try it with leaves and other flower petals as well.

My plan is to transform these prints into handmade cards with a simple ‘thank you’ or ‘happy birthday’ message on them. I am also thinking about maybe outlining parts of the flower with a thin lined art marker.

Will you try flower hammered art? This art project is a great combination of my love of gardening and the creative process.