Botanical Art TIPS & INSTRUCTION - LEAVES
Botanical Art TIPS & INSTRUCTION - TREES
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This is a huge area of study which must be tackled by all those who aspire to excellence in their botanical art This page will develop further over time. If you want to keep in touch with the latest developments I suggest you bookmark it. "I've just found this amazing site all about greens and drawing and painting leaves. This site has so much information it's incredible..." Video TIPS - Drawing and Painting Leaves - watch while others show you how to paint leaves |
If you can paint one leaf you can paint the world |
For many botanical artists, creating realism in leaves may be daunting. Some dread painting leaves so much that they will always compromise compositions by reducing the numbers to be painted. You can break through this pain barrier and reduce the panic by adopting a more systematic approach. |
Below you will find sections covering:
PLUS Tips in sections about:
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If you want to learn how to draw and paint leaves here are some TIPS
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REFERENCE: Checklist of Leaf Characteristics
The following link to Wikipedia pages which explain the terms: |
This is a new section in which I aim to list all the very best leaf painters.
It was prompted by the death of Pandora Sellars who has been characterised as "the best leaf painter ever". |
I have always been interested in how an artist paints leaves. When I started judging botanical art in the mid 1990s I was surprised by how many novice painters gave them very superficial treatment – the flower was paramount. However I follow Ruskin who expressed it, perhaps too optimistically, 'if you can paint one leaf you can paint the world'. |
The very best contemporary leaf painters ever include:
Her paintings have an immediately recognisable stamp and probably her leaves are amongst the most beautiful and yet accurate that have ever been painted |
Leafscape from Outhouse Filmworks on Vimeo.
Although every botanical artist will paint leaves, not every artist specialises in teaching how to paint leaves, buds and trees.
Below I've highlighted a number of artists who have focused on leaves as part of their portfolio of artwork and/or teaching. |
If you plan to enter a painting for a juried exhibition, bear in mind that judges are drawn to leaves like radar!...... they will notice poorly executed leaves or those treated as an afterthought. |
Lizzie Harper (Lizzie Harper Illustration)
writes natural history and botanical articles and produces illustrations for the Field Studies Council. She has also provided a number of articles about sketching and painting leaves. She also has examples of 303 different leaves on her website. Plus this is an example of one of her leaf painting workshops. Rosie Sanders GM
Provides short courses, includes ones on painting leaves. She also has a DVD about painting leaves (see Video Tips below) |
Jessica Shepherd
Developed a project of 30 paintings just about leaves. See Leafscape. She provides periodic workshops of the topic - by invitation e.g. workshop in Transylvania in 2021 Dianne Sutherland
Julia Trickey GM
Likes leaves - particularly those which are less than perfect. She has developed a number of articles, a book (see below), resources and videos about painting leaves. |
Undoubtedly the book that is MISSING on the bookshelves of botanical art students is one which SOLELY focuses on "how to draw and paint leaves".
That's because it doesn't exist. That's a hint for any existing or budding authors out there! It's worth taking a look at Walter Hood Fitch's advice on Botanical Drawing - particularly in relation to leaves (see Scientific Botanical Illustration for a summary) |
This page contains
References to books with sections on drawing and painting leaves are in a call-out box like this one. |
This book is the botany course you wish you could take. It will pull you through it's pages, and you will never look at plants again in the same way. Review
Extremely useful in general and particularly helpful for the botanical illustrator where it deals with the preparation of the plant specimen for microscopic detail. Review |
Anne Bebbington has a 23 page Chapter on Leaves (pages 59-82) in her book Understanding the Flowering Plants. It has lots of photos and diagrams to accompany the text.
It's written very much from a botanical perspective and aims to develop understanding of various leaf characteristics. It covers:
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Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd Publication date: 1 September 2014 Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
BUY IN THE UK BUY IN THE USA |
Covers various watercolour painting techniques for painting a variety of leaves as notes (i.e. NOT a step by step). Plus summaries about
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This is a small paperback which has been well produced and has good quality colours.
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On my painting courses, 'How do you paint leaves?' is the one question I get asked the most". |
If you ignore all the "speed painting" and "easy ways to paint leaves" and "impressionistic blobby leaf painting" videos which litter YouTube you'll find those by competent botanical artists.
A good query to search for videos online is "botanical illustration leaves". Botanical artists with digital instruction (online or via a DVD) about painting leaves includes:
See also Video Tips: Painting Leaves |
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REFERENCE:
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Why do leaves have veins?
REFERENCE:
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A vein is made up of a vascular bundle. At the core of each bundle are clusters of two distinct types of conducting cells: Xylem: cells that bring water and minerals from the roots into the leaf. Phloem: cells that usually move sap, with dissolved sucrose, produced by photosynthesis in the leaf, out of the leaf. |
TIPS about Leaf Veins
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Leaf Rubbing
This video by Elaine Searle (Paint Botanical) demonstrates how to take a leaf rubbing using tracing paper and a soft pencil - so you can study the veination in different leaves. |
I'm a fan of books by The Crowood Press - they're always solid on the technical but also have a strong emphasis on being accessible and well produced. |
This book contains a whole section on leaves covering 20 pages. The book has a nice mix of
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Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd First published: 15 Jun. 2016 Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
BUY IN THE UK Botanical Drawing Using Graphite and Coloured Pencils
BUY IN THE USA Botanical Drawing Using Graphite and Coloured Pencils
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There are three basic types of arrangements of leaves on a stem in flowering plants (angiosperms) include:
From the artist's perspective it's essential to inspect the nature of the leaf arrangement and the number and angles involved. |
REFERENCE
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Less a "how to paint" and more a "what to paint" book.
Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Batsford Ltd; Reprint edition: 22 April 2013 |
SUITABLE FOR INTERMEDIATE & EXPERIENCED FLOWER PAINTERS AND BOTANICAL ARTISTS
- and particularly those aspiring botanical artists who are following the Society of Botanical Artist's Diploma Course! Margaret Stevens's 4th Botanical Art Book - written while Course Director for the Diploma Course offered by the Society of Botanical Artists - is very different from her previous books. This time it is a completely revised and expanded version of an old book. This book might appear to disappoint on first look as it's so very different from the previous three books. However, keep reading - this one is much more focused on developing the botanical knowledge of plant forms that all excellent botanical artists need to have. In addition to the leaves of various flowers, it also covers
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Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
BUY IN UK Handbook of Plant Forms for Botanical Artists
BUY IN USA Handbook of Plant Forms for Botanical Artists
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Not all leaves are green and not all greens are the same
Julia Trickey
Green Colour Swatches and Colour Cards
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Mixing Greens
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Bloom is also notoriously difficult to depict in watercolours, particularly when the use of white is so frowned upon. I know that some artists paint bloom by mixing a tiny bit of cobalt with white gouache and drybrush it on afterwards, but most (myself included) carefully paint the bloom first and build up the darker colours around it.
Shevaun Doherty
The Art of Botanical Painting - has a section on foliage colour covering both coloured pencils and watercolour. Practical examples are given - with images of leaves - and the different mixes used. Plus a four page step by step of a painting of two varieties of Hedera
The section is mostly images. Most of the text is concerned with specifying colour mixes. |
The Botanical Palette - has a very short section on the colour green plus page 120 covers colour testing colours - and comments on colours with green in their title. The book was written at a time when nearly every botanical artist used Winsor & Newton for watercolours. However this has changed since W&N's base for manufacturing left the UK and changes in colours started to be noticed e.g. colour variations depending on when the paint was manufactured or after pigment recipies were changed. It should also be noted that colours with the same name from different manufacturers may not be same colour.
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The Botanical Illustrators Handbook has a 12 page chapter called The Trouble with Greens. Its content includes:
Rated an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars by 17 customer reviews |
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd (4 April 2014) BUY IN UK The Botanical Illustrator's Handbook
BUY IN USA
Botanical Illustrator's Handbook
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She provides practical tips on:
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Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd First Edition 18 Sept. 2008 UK: Rated an average of 4.3 out of 5 stars by 33 customer reviews (includes 1* review but no explanation. Spoiler / pagination issue?) BUY IN UK Botanical Illustration
USA: Rated an average of 4.2 out of 5 stars by 29 customer reviews. (1 star ratings relate to poor pagination by US publisher - not content)
BUY IN USA Botanical Illustration
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Stems, or any cylindrical portions of plants, should be treated as in the instance in the foregoing cut— a reflected light should be left on the shaded side; this will suggest that a section would be circular, but were the shading deepest near the outline of the stem, it would appear compressed, and a section would be oval.
I have heard it remarked that reflected lights are an artistic refinement in botanical drawings for scientific purposes, but as it is certainly effective and natural an artist may safely give the paper on which he draws some credit for reflection.
Walter Hood Fitch
a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species
Tree | Wikipedia
It's very difficult to find anybody teaching "how to draw trees" - and yet trees are much more than their leaf shapes and the flowers, fruit and berries they bear.
THE OTHER BOOK THAT NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN!
We also need a good book written by an experienced botanical artist about how to draw trees. At the moment there's a few books around which purport to show you how to draw trees. The words "simple steps" often crop up. They seem to me to be aimed more at the landscape painter than the botanical artist. I'm generally not impressed ARTISTS WHO DRAW AND PAINT TREES Rather than show you show you information about books about how to paint trees and leaves, it's actually much easier to show you
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If you want to learn how to draw and paint trees here are some TIPS BEFORE YOU START
DISTINGUISH:
OBSERVE & STUDY:
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TUTORIALS
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WEBSITE REFERENCES
Certain websites provide a lot of useful information about individual trees
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(to be developed further) |
The best best painters of trees in terms of contemporary artists and illustrators include:
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See also my blog post about Recording Ancient and Heritage Trees for comments on major contemporary projects by Masumi Yamanaka and Mark Frith
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The book accompanies the exhibition of the same name at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew Gardens, from 6 October 2018 – March 2019.
A gazeteer is provided at the end of the book with the locations of each tree. It's proved extremely popular with the public visiting Kew Gardens. |
Format: Hardback (112 pages with 51 monochrome illustrations)
Dimensions: 230 x 290 mm. ISBN 978 1 84246 667 4 Publisher: Kew Publishing Publication date: 15 October 2018 Rated an average of 4.6 out of 5 on Amazon but sold extremely fast at Kew BUY THE BOOK
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This catalogue produced in association with the exhibition of Kew's Heritage Trees - paintings by Masumi Yamanaka at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew in 2015
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This exhibition focused on what are known as the Heritage Trees and include paintings of the trees known as the "Old Lions" which have been living at Kew for over 250 years.
READ MY Review: Kew's Heritage Trees - paintings by Masumi Yamanaka VIEW a slideshow of images of Kew's Heritage Trees | The Telegraph |
Hardcover: 120 pages
Publisher: Kew Publishing Publication date: 1 Mar. 2015 Rated an average of 5 out of 5 stars by 2 customer reviews on Amazon
BUY IN THE UK Treasured Trees
BUY IN THE USA
Treasured Trees
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This detailed celebration of Britain's trees & forest is a contemporary version of the original, by silvologist Gabriel Hemery and artist Sarah Simblet
John Evelyn's Sylva, published by the Royal Society in 1664, was the world's first comprehensive study of trees and inspired this publication. The book is illustrated with over 200 detailed contemporary drawings by Sarah Simblet of trees in the UK. The New Sylva describes the tree species that play a significant role in today's society, and offers a deep and enriching understanding of our orchards and forests. |
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Publication date: 10 April 2014 Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars by 57 customer reviews BUY IN UK BUY IN USA
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REFERENCE:
Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions by the English writer John Evelyn was recognised as one of the most influential texts on forestry ever published. You can read a digital version of one of the later editions (Sylva: Or, a Discourse of Forest Trees by John Evelyn, John Nisbet - Published 1908) |
Careful observation of how bark varies is essential when drawing or painting a tree.
Bark tissue has a number of different components and varies significantly from tree to tree. Rachel Munn has made a number of wonderful studies of bark |
REFERENCE
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NEWS
News Blog about artists, awards, exhibitions etc. |
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