Read Brown Paper Bag for any length of time and you’ll see my affinity for both paper craft and flowers. I can’t get enough! Sarah Yakawonis is the latest paper artist to catch my eye with her shop Folded Petal. Her Masterpieces series involves her replicating some of art history’s most famous flowers, like Van Gogh’s Irises, to create a 3D version of the classic painting.
The results are faithful reproductions of the bloom’s poses and textures. Sarah uses a combination of painting and folding to capture the right shadows—as well as the overall feeling of the piece. “When I began my exploration of recreating masterpieces in paper flowers,” she writes, “I used those feelings, that experience to [guide] me to this painting. The same painting I stood in front of all those years ago, that painting that made me weep.”
If you’d like to try these flowers for yourself, Sarah sells them as kits in the Folded Petal Etsy shop.
Above and below: Irises by Vincent van Gogh, 1890
Poppies, from an untitled series known as Large Flowers by Katsushika Hokusai, 1833
