Shane Connolly

The Art of Environmental Floristry

£45
Level: Peer






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The difference between Peer & Expert levels

Both Peer and Expert levels provide:

  • Video lessons led by an expert tutor
  • Downloadable lesson notes
  • Practice assignments
  • Group learning in a 20-student online classroom
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes, and classroom

The Expert level additionally includes:

  • Personalized feedback and coaching from your tutor
  • Private messaging with your tutor
  • Certificate of completion
Level: Peer

Course overview

Royal florist, Shane Connolly teaches you the art of environmental floral design in his online floristry course.

Passionate about British flowers and foliage, Shane Connolly holds royal warrants of appointment to both HM The Queen and HRH The Prince of Wales and designed the wedding flowers for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.

The bridal bouquet was inspired by the Language of Flowers with lily of the valley (return of happiness), sweet William (gallantry), hyacinth (constancy of love), myrtle (a symbol of marriage and love) and ivy (fidelity, marriage).

The flowers and foliage used to decorate Westminster Abbey included euphorbias, rhododendron, wisteria, azaleas and lilacs which were cut from the royal estates at Windsor and Sandringham. And importantly, everything was replanted, recycled or composted after the wedding.

Shane will teach you how to consider environmental sensitivity and artistic insight when creating naturalistic and beautiful flower arrangements. Shane pioneers sustainable techniques, and during this course he's taken a ‘no floral foam' stance to lead the next wave of environmental floristry industry.

Professional florists and enthusiasts can learn from Shane how to practice floristry with the very latest natural and environmentally friendly techniques, which are woven throughout demonstrations, practice and thinking in these lessons.

Your assignments will challenge you to develop your own style with these influences. No floral design will be too big or too small. This course covers very simple floral designs to challenging and sophisticated displays for events.

You'll find that Shane's style of teaching is both down to earth and pragmatic, whilst being approachable and non judgemental.

If you'd like insight from one of the world's greatest florists on how to develop your own style using seasonal, home-grown and environmentally friendly flowers for beauty – this is the course for you.

You'll learn:

  • how to create floral designs and flower arrangements for any occasion
  • choosing local flowers and plants
  • creating sustainable designs
  • where to find inspiration for your floral designs

Time to complete this floristry course:

Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 18 hours 45 mins to complete including:

  • Video lessons: 3 hours 45 mins
  • Course notes: 2 hours 30 mins
  • Assignment: at least 2 hours per lesson
  • Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
  • Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per lesson

You'll need:

You will be choosing flowers, sustainable containers, creating flower arrangements and floral designs. So you'll need some flowers and foliage to use (remember to take inspiration locally!), sustainable containers which could be jars or kitchen or garden containers, scissors and any accessories you want to add to your floral designs (for example ribbon).

The course is suitable for all levels - flower enthusiasts, fans of Shane Connolly's work, to professional florists or those in the floristry business who want to learn environmental and sustainable floral techniques from Shane.

The course includes:

  • 5 on-demand video lesson - presented by Shane Connolly
  • lifetime access to the video, notes and interactive class
  • flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
  • downloadable lesson notes
  • practical (optional) floral design projects
  • access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
  • small interactive online classroom chat online to students from around the world

Ready to get started?

Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from Shane on your floral designs and questions.

Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.

 

Watch course trailer

Lesson summary

Artistic philosophy
In this lesson you will get unique footage to help you understand how Shane’s artistic process works for design in floristry. This is a deeply personal aspect of design, one which enables you to use your environment to inspire and influence the choices you make. You’ll be taken on location during the video lecture with Shane, on an intimate journey to places of inspiration like art galleries, and natural settings for flowers. Shane shares his own passion and thinking processes for how you will begin your own design process. Learning outcome: By the end of this lesson, you will have learnt how to tap into your own design inspiration, using your own environment.
Environmental Flower Choices
Here Shane shares how he makes choices about flowers based on his vision. In this lesson context and the environment play a very important part in the choices that he makes. You are encouraged to do the same, wherever you are in the world. This is where you will start to understand why you are making the floral choices you are depending on your own context, needs, flower and foliage availability and personal style.
Design creation
In this lesson, rather than prescriptively telling you what to design, Shane talks you through several of his own designs, which are followed through from the inspiration stage shared in lesson one. Learning Outcome: You will learn here some ideas and techniques on how to translate your creative inspiration into a practical reality using only environmentally friendly techniques.
Favourite Designs
Finally, now you have understood and are beginning to own your personal style, Shane talks you through his own favourite designs from his own floral work and others. This is to help you evolve your thinking further, and progress in terms of breadth of styles and influences. There is a particular focus on naturalistic displays and environmentally friendly practices.
Bonus Arrangements
In this fifth bonus lesson, Shane will take you through four additional arrangements. Firstly he will demonstrate how to create a naturalistic arrangement using foraged flowers, drawing inspiration from Pietra Dura. He will then go on to demonstrate an arrangement in an urn using chicken wire. For the third arrangement, Shane takes you to a client’s house and demonstrates how you can choose and arrange flowers in a way which compliments the artwork of a house and the flatters the setting. Finally, Shane will create an arrangement which draws inspiration from a wedding he did in India, and show how you can re-create a certain look and style within your own environment.

Choose how you want to learn

Expert-level

Develop your learning further with marked assignments and personal tuition:

  • Start the course whenever you like
  • Tutor access for personalised assignment feedback & coaching
  • Certificate of completion and CPD learning hours
  • Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
  • Lessons with expert videos & notes
  • Group chat & direct message with tutor & classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom

Peer-level

Get the most from shared knowledge and community study:

  • Start course whenever you like
  • Practise what you learn with your peers
  • Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
  • Lessons with videos & notes
  • Course assignments
  • Group chat & direct message classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom
Portrait of Shane Connolly

meet the expert

Shane Connolly

London-based floral designer of exquisite, timeless arrangements with over 20 years of experience.

Read more

Why choose Learning with Experts?

Start whenever it suits you, and immerse yourself in motivational lesson tutorials with expert guidance.
Enhance your learning and personal growth with lesson assignments. Each course includes an optional assignment at the end of every lesson.
Drop a friendly message or respond to your assignment feedback. Our world-class experts are just a click away, ready to help you!
Stay informed about your own progress and those of your peers, and take joy in celebrating achievements along the way.
Chat and share ideas with passionate communities of learners from around the world.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between PEER and EXPERT levels?

At Peer and Expert level, you get access to the same core content and features:

  • Video lesson tutorials led by your expert tutor
  • Downloadable lesson notes
  • Option to practise what you learn with lesson assignments
  • Group learning within an online interactive classroom of up to 20 classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes and classroom

If you choose Expert level, you get all of the above plus the following:

  • Personalised assignment feedback and coaching from your expert tutor
  • Opportunity to interact with your expert tutor through a private messaging system
  • Certificate of completion.
What is an online classroom?

Our online classroom has been developed to allow you to learn from our experts in a sociable environment alongside up to 20 other students. After each video tutorial led by your expert, you will be encouraged to practice what you have learned with optional assignments - these can be seen by the other students in your class, who are free to share their own thoughts and questions with you.

You will be encouraged to take part in an ongoing class discussion where you can discuss ideas, post images or work, and comment on each other’s assignments. It’s a great way to learn from other like-minded people who share your passion from all over the world.

This means not only do you benefit from people who are outstanding in their field, but also from a close-knit group of like-minded people whom you can learn alongside. Group learning has shown to greatly improve not just the experience of studying, but also how well you retain the knowledge, and we have built our classroom experience around this fact.

When can I start my course and how long will it take?

You can start your course any time within 12 months after receipt of your purchase confirmation email. Once you start, you’ll have lifetime access — meaning you can revisit the lesson videos and notes whenever you want.

Our courses are designed so that you can study at your own pace, some prefer to binge learn while others like to spread their studying over a longer period of time - it’s completely up to you. To give you a rough time frame, each lesson video is approximately 30-40 minutes long, and we recommend that you spend around an hour on each assignment.

How often can I speak with the Expert?

If you opt for the Expert version of your course, the time you have to interact with your tutor is limited to course length. You will have one week per lesson to chat to your tutor and to have your assignments marked, and during this period you can ask them as many questions as you would like.

To find out the length of each course, head to the product page and look at the Course outline to see how many lessons it contains. e.g. a four lesson course assumes that you will have completed the assignments within four weeks.

Your tutor interaction period will start as soon as you enter the classroom. If you find that you are struggling to complete the assignments in the allocated time or you wish to put this function on hold, just get in contact with one of the team via the support button and we will help you out.

Support and full FAQs

If you need any help with a course, be it one you’ve started already, or one you are looking to purchase, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support email address, or view the full FAQ’s here.

You can also use the orange speech bubble on your page to start a conversation with us.

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Awards and accreditations