BOUQUET-MAKING 



from the teacher who makes no mistakes. 

 Imitate as well as you can the simplicity of 

 naturalness. I do not mean by this that you 

 should attempt to copy Nature in a servile way 

 but that your work should be along natural 

 lines instead of artificial ones. 



We make a serious mistake in thinking that 

 a good deal of material is needed. We crowd 

 a good many flowers together and wonder 

 that the effect is not more pleasing. The colors 

 harmonize, perhaps, but something spoils the 

 effect we had in mind. What is it? In nine 

 cases out of ten the failure comes because we 

 have destroyed the individuality of the flowers 

 we have made use of. We have not given them 

 enough elbow-room. A group of persons on a 

 lawn may be a very picturesque and pleasing 

 feature of the scene, because we see the pe- 

 culiarities of each person in the group. But 

 add a large number of persons to it and the 

 group becomes a crowd and some of the fea- 

 tures that attracted us, at first, are lost sight 

 of. There is no longer any individuality. It is 

 precisely so in the arrangement of flowers 

 when we use more than are needed to produce 

 an artistic effect. A few, intelligently used, 

 can be made extremely effective. The artist 



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