"Ability Bouquet (Stronger Together)" - In Progress 1

My final 19x25 drawing in the "Stronger Together" series is called "Ability Bouquet." In it, I use 24 flowers that represent physical, emotional, and mental strength, health, and age-related abilities, as well as flowers in various stages of maturity (buds, full blooms, and dried/wilting flowers) or visible healthfulness (flowers that are limp, ripped, or otherwise broken).

For a longer blog post about what all I'm including under this "ability umbrella," please visit my last post.

The flowers that I chose for this bouquet are the following:

• Daffodil - rebirth, new beginnings, uncertainty, returned affection, springtime, creativity, inspiration, renewal and vitality, awareness, inner reflection, memory, and forgiveness

• Tulip - springtime, enduring love, forgotten or neglected love, abundance, prosperity, royalty, indulgence, charity and supporting the less fortunate

• White Lilac - joy of youth, youthful confidence, purity, innocence

• Crocus - youthful gladness, cheerfulness, glee

• Cherry Blossoms - transience, good education, womanhood, love, wisdom, short lived beauty of youth

• Dahlia - diversity, elegance, inner strength, creativity, change, dignity

• White Rose - purity, innocence, reverence, silence, memory, loss

• Hollyhock - ambition, abundance, fertility

• Aloe - healing, protection, affection, grief, luck

• Dandelion - overcoming hardship, resilience, healing from emotional/physical pain, emotional/spiritual intelligence, survival, long-lasting happiness and youthful joy, getting wishes fulfilled

• Chamomile - patience, wealth, healthfulness

• Geranium - fertility, health, love, protection, true friendship, comfort, stupidity, folly

• Hellebore - scandal, calumny, poison

• Acanthus - art, enduring life, pain/sin/punishment, mourning death

• Lady's Mantle - comforting

• Anemone - luck and protection against evil, abandonment, truth, sincerity, forsaken, sickness, vanishing hopes, death, parting, transition

• Hen and Chicks Succulent - survival, always living

• Lupine - happiness, inner strength to recover from trauma, new opportunities, positivity

• Yarrow - good health, everlasting love, courage, psychic powers, cure for a broken heart

• Heliotrope - eternal love, prophetic dreams, healing, warmth, invisibility

• Marigold - pain, grief, cruelty, jealousy, beauty and warmth of the rising sun, creativity, drive to succeed

• Tansy - hostile thoughts, health, longevity

• Flannel Flower - mental health awareness, purity, safe boundaries, self-expression

• Mullein - courage, protection, health, love, divination, exorcism

Once I decided which flowers to use, it was time to plan the composition for the drawing. I made some quick sketches on newsprint to figure out the placement of the flowers, and which ones I might show as damaged, browned, or wilting.

My next post will start the sketch on black paper!