Full Metal Garden Gnome

I’d love to tell you that I spent my holiday time off recharging and rejuvenating, but the truth is that I nearly experienced death by lilies. I had no idea how toxic their pollen can be until day 5 of the presence of a beautiful flower arrangement we had on our dining room table, when I figured out I felt less horrible outside in my greenhouse than I did inside icing sugar cookies. The allergies soon turned into a sinus infection—on the bright side, I was grateful it wasn’t Covid.

So it was, absolutely guilt-free, that I spent all but the sub-freezing days of the last 2.5 weeks, laid up in my zero gravity chair, passed out among my safer houseplants, listening to old radio episodes of Nero Wolfe.

One day my husband remarked, “Ya know, it’s not so much a small greenhouse as it is a giant terrarium.”

He had a point.

“Damn,” I replied. “That makes me its garden gnome.”

Whatever my role, the 8’ wide hexagonal structure has become my safe haven, where the only job I have is occasionally watering and frequently misting the ferns. Who could have ever imagined that climate collapse would make Hotlanta’s infamous humidity evaporate???

With all that time to ponder leaf and petal structures and how they translate into metal…

I realized that the new Floral Module I’m adding to my Eastern Repoussé Extended Course goes into far more depth than a dogwood blossom or cluster of leaves, as I had originally conceived.

So many students design floral motifs in my courses that I realized:

Instead of expecting them to translate the techniques into petal possibilities, I needed to demo exactly how multiple levels of relief become overlapping leaves, and how chasing “stair-stepped” structures allows petal edges to overlap and come forward into space while others recede and slip behind.

Part-way through the very first iteration of online Eastern Repoussé that I created in 2021, I added a whole module on how these same concepts translate into figurative work.

Since much of my own work features rabbits, fish, turtles, and other stylized creatures, I opted to use my miniature painting of “Luna Mouse” (my spirit animal) to go from watercolor to bas-relief sterling in order to demonstrate exactly how to countersink delicate ears and chase tiny toes. It was so successful in helping students get where they wanted to go, that I knew florals needed to be next.

Of course, when it comes to any course or project of mine, I’m the queen of overdelivering.

What I imagine will be straightforward project and take only a little time expands into the expression of the depth and breadth of all I know on a subject. Anything less would feel like holding back.

And so:

“How to chase a flower and a few leaves” immediately became “A cluster of roses in varying states of opening, surrounded by leaves, with extreme height, and wildly subtle differences in levels to convey the dimensions of all that is rosy.”

Overkill?!?

Never!

Because I know, from decades of experience and teaching thousands of students, that people will use my way of teaching to expand their own design options and create stunning work with a bit of practice.

That said, my extra 1.5 hour module is quickly evolving into 3+ hours of detailed demos, and could easily be a course in its own right—not merely the advance ending-module in a “soup to nuts” course on Eastern Repoussé and Chasing.

In addition to the inclusion of the Floral Module in the main course, I’ll be offering it as a follow-up course to the alumni of my past Eastern Repousse Online Courses. Its depth, breadth, and just how much more material (and countless hours of work for me) this has added to the main course has made me realize what a bargain the Eastern Repoussé Extended Course really is.

That’s why, not only is this upcoming course the only time I’ll be offering it in 2023, it will also be the last time I’ll be offering it at its current price.