Activities:Scanning
From Bulbs
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Create a digital photo 'collage'
Here's a simple way to make spectacular images of your bulb flowers using an ordinary flatbed scanner.
|  Daffodils and other spring flowers captured digitally with an ordinary scanner. |
Objectives
- Create an innovative work using flowers and technology.
- Learn how to use a scanner in a novel way.
- Appreciate the different forms and colors of bulbs.
Materials
- A diversity of bulb flowers and/or foliage
- Black cloth large enough to generously cover the scanner bed – about the size of a pillow case works well. (You can experiment with other color backgrounds as well.
- Flatbed scanner connected to a personal computer.
- Color printer, if you want to print hard copies.
Logistics and timing
You can do this activity anytime you have bulb flowers available to scan.
The time involved depends on the complexity of the designs and the size of the group you are working with. To speed the process, you can have participants make ‘drafts’ of their arrangements on a piece of cardboard the same size as the scanner bed while they are waiting to use the scanner.
Background/introduction
If you have a creative urge, love technology (actually, it’s very simple), and you don’t want to dabble in paint or clay, this art project may be right up your alley.
A collage is simply a collection of images. In this activity, you make a ‘collage’ from a collection of bulb flowers captured on an ordinary flatbed scanner normally used to scan documents or photos. Instead of cutting up pictures and gluing them in place, you arrange the blossoms on the scanner a capture them digitally. Possibilities range from single flower motifs to elaborate arrangement of a diversity of flowers, to using flowers to create designs. It’s a good way to use and explore bulb flowers you’ve grown in other activities.
The collages you create are similar to 17th-century Dutch still-life paintings like those, for example of Cornelis de Heem. This digital collage, a tribute to de Heem, recently won and art show competition.
Activity
- Gather more flowers than you think you’ll need. The more diverse your collection, the more opportunity you’ll have to create interesting collages.
- Create a draft of your arrangement face-up on a flat surface. If several participants are doing the activity, have them create their draft on a piece of cardboard that they can carry to the scanner when it’s their turn to scan.
- Carefully transfer the arrangement face-down on the scanner bed. You can use the 'preview' button in your scanner software to check your collage arrangement step-by-step as you create it.
- Once arranged, cover the entire scanner with a piece of black cloth to provide a black background. (If your room isn't too bright, you can skip using the cloth and still get a dark background in your scan.) You can use white cloth to provide a lighter background, or experiment with other backgrounds.
- Scan the arrangement following directions for your scanner software. Use settings for color photographs to start. Set the resolution for 300 dpi (dots per inch) if you want to make sharp, life-sized prints of your scans. You can use lower resolutions (speeding up the scanning) if you only want to make smaller prints or only plan to use your scans in electronic forms (for example on a website). If you want to blow your scans up to larger sizes, choose higher resolutions, but these will create very large files and slow down the scanning.
- Most scanning software allows you to preview your scan. Study the preview and make and needed adjustments to your arrangement before making the final scan and saving your image.
- Print your image or use it in a website, PowerPoint slideshow, or other electronic application.
Going further
Use your scanned images to create notecards or posters. If you are working on a community bulb planting project, you can sell notecards as a fundraiser and use the posters for promotional efforts.
After you’ve tried some single-blossom scans and simple arrangements, use this technique to explore colors:
- Group blossoms into warm (red, orange, yellow) and cool (green, blue, purple) color schemes.
- Create a “rainbow scan” with flowers arranged to match the colors of the rainbow.
- Create monochrome arrangements with flowers of different forms but the same color.
For an introduction to flower colors and color theory, see Using Color in Flower Gardens.
Recruit a graphic artist to help with more advance image manipulation:
- Using an imagining program such as PhotoShop or PaintShopPro, create a true collage by cutting and pasting scans of individual flowers into interesting patterns. For inspiration, see the flower mandals created by artist Portia Munson.
- You can create similar collages using images taken with a digital camera. For inspiration, see the works created by artist Glenn Osborne.
- Use the artistic filters in PhotoShop to make your images mimic different media, such as water colors.
- Explore the onlline resources below. Seek out more scanner art on the Internet. Share what you find on our blog.
Web resources
Many garden bloggers are using this practice to record what they grow in their gardens. See, for example:
Some artists who use scanning and other floral collage techniques:
See also:
- "Lasting Impressions," by Ken Druse in Horticulture, Aug./Sept. 2007, pp. 48-53. Druse profiles floral scanning artist Ellen Hoverkamp and her techniques.
More info at this site
Use scans for publicity posters or notecards to sell as fundraisers when Forging community partnerships.
Interact
Share ideas about this activity and read insights from other educators on our blog.
