In a recent post we introduced the three main elements of Ikebana arrangements: mass, color and line. Traditionally they are all equally important. Well, let me use the words of Gorge Orwell “we are all equal but some are more equal than others” to express my bias towards lines. Of course it is all about the overall harmony and balance but we do have our preferences. You guessed it right: lines in ikebana arrangements are my favorite element.

I find it interesting how the use of lines completely changes the character of your arrangement. It can make your arrangement static if you use horizontal or vertical lines or can add dramatic movement with diagonal or curved lines. You can imagine all the possibilities!

Even a single strong line in an arrangement makes it into a statement piece, into something, thath catches attention and looks quite different from what you typically see in florists’ shops. With bold lines and a minimal number of flowers you can create arrangements, that will have a dramatic impact on the space where they are displayed.

There are plenty of different types of lines you can use in your arrangements: natural curves of branches, straight lines of reed and bamboo, peculiarly curled stems of flowers just to name a few. And if you add the lines made of artificial materials such as colorful cocktail straws, electrical wires (those could get pretty colorful as well), thin metal pipes … the possibilities are endless. You can combine straight and curved lines, add different texture, create a modern look and test the limits of your creativity.

Just start experimenting. If your material is really thin such as straw or reed, you can put several pieces together or even tie them together to make a stronger impression like in the above photo. Another trick is using color to make your lines look more pronounced. In the first image of this post there are 2 reed stems, which are painted red. This gives them more visual “weight” and prevents the flowers from overpowering the thin pale reed stems.

Hope this post gave you some new ideas coming from the ancient Japanese art of Ikebana and inspired you to try expressing your creativity through arranging flowers in some new ways. If you make any pictures of your arrangements feel free to e-mail them to me Ekaterina@IkebanaWeb.com. It would be interesting to share those in the future posts.

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Don’t want to miss the next post? Sign up for e-mail updates from IkebanaWEB.com and we will e-mail you a free report “How to keep your flowers fresh, longer”. This report covers many ikebana techniques for prolonging life of your arrangements through different treatments of stems.