Creating plant art !

I have seen the art created from plants as attached in the picture.

Can anyone help identify what type of plants I need to achieve this look.

The other picture is of a plant I actually have in my rental house garden which looks like it would be ideal as the first plant for the project ??

Can I take cuttings from it to get some small plants to insert into the plant art ??

 

I would say that picture 1 are succulents. But, I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me will be along shortly to confirm (or deny )

 

They are both sempervivums, although I think the framed pic has got some small leaved sedums in the mix. Very easy to grow and multiply, although it might take you a while to get that many. They enjoy dry sunny situations and don't need a lot of care. They stay as small rosettes but create new mini rosettes on side stalks which can be planted up to grow bigger. They may produce a 6" flower stalk in early summer which provides a lot of colour but will probably render them useles for your purposes.

I don't know how the framed piece is put together but it might be very temporary unless the plants are in some sort of pot behind the frame. If it was planted it wouldn't stay looking like that for more than - say - a few months before they all grew too dense to fit in any more.

If your main aim is just to create art with plant material you could look at the techniques for well-dressing used in Derbyshire, where petals, leaves etc are pressed into a damp clay base to create areas of colour and texture. Very easy to do, (I think!) you don't need quantities of living plants, just collect what you need when you see it in whatever colour takes your fancy - best to make friends with a good gardener. This type of work only lasts up to a fortnight but you could photograph it. I reckon you could create some really painterly effects with this technique, although the Derbyshire subjects are usually fairly naive religious scenes!