in the recent group exhibition with which i was involved, i exhibited 5 pieces of work – only 4 of which have appeared on here previously. they were thistles, bramble, fence and crow. the fifth piece was one which i had sketched out over a year ago when i first began to work on this project and i only completed it the day before the exhibition started! it is of a giant seed head, again spotted while out running, and while i had seen smaller ones like this before i had never seen one quite so big as the one this was based on. it stood majestic for a few weeks, nothing else nearby could match its size, its stems shedding unwanted dried layers until the rain and dampness of last autumn soaked it through and caused it to collapse.
all of the images in this series were ambitious for me because of their size, which meant more elements and detail than a typical piece of work and this was no exception. there are over 150 of the larger seed flowers and each is made from 2 different shapes, and another 100 of the smaller ones – these were all cut by hand and carefully glued on.
while this piece was always meant to be part of the series, it almost never got made. i’m glad i decided to do it because in the first instance i was pleased with it, and then i got some really positive comments about it from visitors at the exhibition’s private view. i was also fortunate enough to sell this piece too, which was just great.
i’m not sure that i’m done with this piece yet though – i intend to crop parts of the design to make smaller studies – re-cutting all of the necessary pieces to make a new image like this detail here:
chris cowdrill's blog 