NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

The 16th Biennial Art of Botanical Illustration Exhibition at RBG Victoria

18/9/2022

Yesterday the 16th Biennial Exhibition of The Art of Botanical Illustration (TABI 2022) opened in Melbourne, Australia.

Venue: Domain House galleries, Dallas Brooks Drive, Melbourne
Dates: Saturday 17th September and Sunday 2nd October 2022
Hours: 10am - 4pm daily
The exhibition is organised and presented by the Friends of the Royal Botanic Garden Victoria.

Below you can find out more about:

the exhibition
how to view the artwork and videos online
history of the exhibition
the awards for artwork
an associated exhibition - in a blog post later this week.

The hero image for the 16th Biennial (in the publicity images) is a beautiful and delicate painting of Grevillea rosmarinifolia, painted by Lioudmila Volodina. (At TABI 2020, her artwork Vaccinium corymbosum was purchased for The State Botanical Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.)

The Art of Botanical Illustration (16th Biennial)

The Art of Botanical Illustration exhibition is one of Australia’s leading and most prestigious botanical illustration exhibitions - and is held on a biennial basis.

It's been four years since the last exhibition - due to its biennial nature combined with the pandemic. The last exhibition - as highlighted in The 15th Biennial Art of Botanical Illustration Exhibition at RBG Melbourne was Online Only .)

All artworks are for sale and funds raised are used to support the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

TABI this year is being held for the first time as a hybrid exhibition with

a physical exhibition at the Domain Galleries. This prestigious exhibition of native and exotic species is open daily (including public holidays). (see above for details)
You can also view the artwork ONLINE via https://tabi.rbgfriendsmelbourne.org/ - specifically:
- Gallery of Artwork in the TABI Exhibition - in alphabetical order of the artists' surnames
- Names of the participating artists and links to their artwork and profiles
- Vimeo Videos of artists and others talking about TABI stories the exhibition.

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Autumn 2022 Banner: Medlar and Pear by Joris Hoefnagel

5/9/2022

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The correct title of the painting used for the new Autumn Banner for my website and Facebook Page is actually Medlar, Poppy Anemone, and Pear by Joris Hoefnagel.

The cropped image comes from an illumination within a book called the Mira calligraphiae monumenta (Model Book of Calligraphy ) which was written 1561–1562 by Georg Bocskay the Croatian-born court secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand. The illumination at the bottom of the page was added about 1591–1596.

Joris (aka Georg) Hoefnagel was commissioned by Emperor Rudolph II, Ferdinand's grandson, to illustrate the book - some 15 years after the death of Bocksay. Hoefnagel added fruit, flowers, and insects to nearly every page.

Medlar, Poppy Anemone, and Pear, 1561–1562; illumination added 1591–1596 Watercolors, gold and silver paint, and ink, Leaf: 16.6 × 12.4 cm (6 9/16 × 4 7/8 in.) Joris Hoefnagel (Flemish / Hungarian, 1542 - 1600), illuminator and Georg Bocskay (Hungarian, died 1575), scribe The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 20, fol. 13, 86.MV.527.13

About Medlar, Poppy Anemone, and Pear

- In 1591, Hoefnagel was appointed court artist to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. In this role he was commissioned to illustrate the Mira calligraphiae monumenta a model book of calligraphic scripts.

This image is from the edition (1 of 2) owned by the Getty Museum and has fruit, flowers, and insects to nearly every page.

The Getty Museum does not state what the support is but I'm guessing it's vellum as that's stated to be the support used for other artwork by Hoefnagel on other websites. Also, if you inspect a magnified version of the image, you can see the dry brush strokes commonly used on such supports. The media used for the illumination is watercolour, gold and silver paint, and ink.

You can see more examples of the calligraphy by Bocskay and paintings by Hoefnagel on this page.

When I look at these, I get the impression that he added images to each page one at a time - and kept going until he had a nice assembly. That's because the images don't fit seasons as such! I can demonstrate this - with the example BELOW - called Insect, Daffodil, European Columbine, and English Oak Acorns. This suggests that maybe the daffodil was painted first, the columbine came next and then the acorns later in the year - and the insect maybe added last to add to the overall balance of the image.

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SSBA Botanical Art Courses in Scotland 2022-24

25/7/2022

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The NEW SSBA Botanical Art Introductory and Intermediate courses in the south (Dumfries) and north (Aviemore) of Scotland are now available for

EITHER booking Introductory Courses being held in October 2022
OR to note interest in the April 2023, October 2023 and April 2024 courses.

The courses are open to both SSBA members, other individuals and art groups in the south and north of Scotland who are interested in learning and developing their botanical art skills. The aim of the support is to provide better tuition in areas where it has been a scarce resource in the past.

The courses are spread over two Academic Years: Year 1 2022-23 and Year 2 2023-24.

In Year 1 there will be 2 beginner courses in autumn and 2 in spring.
In Year 2 there will be 2 intermediate courses in autumn and 2 in spring.
There will be 12 places per course.

Funded by the Finnis Scott Foundation Botanical Art Prize 2022,

the SSBA course tutoring plus tea, coffee and lunch during the course is provided FREE OF CHARGE to attendees.
However Attendees will need to cover their own personal costs for travel, art materials and, where required, accommodation, breakfast and dinner.

You can find details - including venues and suggested accommodation on:

the SSBA website - see SSBA Botanical Art Courses Scotland AND the PDF file below
this website - see the Scotland Section of my page about UK: Botanical Art Courses Classes, Courses and Workshops in England, Scotland and Wales in 2022-23

ssba-botanical-art-training-courses-scotland-information.pdf
File Size:	282 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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The real woman behind this website

17/7/2022

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I got into botanical art because of my mother. The fact that this website exists starts with her.

Every year when I was young, Mummy always ordered an RHS Desk Diary. These had botanical illustrations at periodic intervals throughout the year. We were both intrigued by them and loved the illustrations of flowers, fruit and vegetables- particularly those by Redoute. Every year I looked forward to seeing her new one to see what new pleasures would be inside. Over time, once the diary was finished, plates were removed and inserted into frames and hung on the wall.

She also enjoyed art and I remember artwork she did for her local Women's Institute involving plants from every season. She was also very encouraging about my own artistic endeavours.

Then there was her love of plants and gardening and visiting gardens. As an adult, I lived in London and she continued to live in Cheshire. Most of my visits to her involved very long visits to plant centres, planting the garden and even longer visits to various gardens near her home in Cheshire. Latterly, as we both became less mobile together, we became very appreciative of gardens on the level - and rollators!

Nowadays I'm rather less mobile and mother (in her late seventies) is even less so. For those who like visiting gardens but have difficulty walking, Tatton is an excellent place to visit as it provides electric wheelchairs of the sort you see many older people now using to do their shopping. Mother whizzed around gravel paths and on and off grassy banks in one - she even managed the steep slope at the side of the Italian gardens! Fortunately I managed to persuade her to sharpen all my pencils for me before she started getting too ambitious!
Sketches from Tatton Park (June 2007) | Travels with a Sketchbook

I liked the way she always called plants by their correct Latin names and I now wander around gardens and identify plants as I go with names which just pop into my head. My knowledge of most of them can only come from listening to her over very many years.

As she became older and more arthritic, we devised new ways to garden at her home to take account of her mobility. I ran around uprooting weeds, pruning and generally licking the garden into better shape while she she sat in one spot filling the garden rubbish bin and making me cups of tea!

I saw her in June and spent some of my time moving all her big plant pots around so she had the best view of all the plants which were blooming just beyond the huge sliding windows which provided her with such an excellent view of her garden.

(She was tickled pink when my sketch of her garden (see below) was given the double page spread introducing section 2 "Deciding what to draw" in my book about sketching!)

A Cheshire Garden in July 2011 pen and ink and coloured pencil on Arches, 10" x 14" copyright Katherine Tyrrell

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Video: Illustrating the night time blooming water lilies

5/7/2022

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Lucy Smith at her desk in Kew - with a giant water lily bud she's just dissected

(below) Further to yesterday's post A NEW Giant Water Lily - discovered and illustrated by Lucy Smith, some of you may be interested in video of some of the challenges of illustrating water lilies

Channel 5 have been collaborating with Kew Gardens to create an excellent series called Kew Gardens - A Year in Bloom which aired for the first time last year 2021. It's about the work of the gardens - and the people who work within it - who of course include botanical illustrators.

Episode 3 included a section on the work of Lucy Smith, one of Kew's freelance botanical illustrators, and the challenges she has faced when trying to get specimens of giant water lilies to draw and then paint.

This YouTube video (below) - posted by Channel 5, is has been compiled from extracts from Episode 3 of their series and is called "Trying to catch the night-time bloom of the Waterlilies"

In it you see:

the Waterlily House at Kew Gardens - completed in 1852 and designed specifically to showcase the giant Amazon waterlily (Victoria amazonica)
the Kew Herbarium (where seven million preserved vascular plant specimens are kept) and the Library
Lucy Smith at her desk in the building dissecting a very fresh giant water lily bud - being careful to avoid the prickles - and then explaining how it works for the purposes of reproduction

and here's the bud - and you can see how big it is from Lucy's hand behind it!

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A NEW Giant Water Lily - discovered and illustrated by Lucy Smith

4/7/2022

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The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew have today announced the publication of a paper about the discovery of Victoria boliviana a brand NEW Giant Water Lily. Moreover it is now officially recognised to be the LARGEST in the world.

Oddly, the newly-named Victoria boliviana has actually been sitting in Kew’s Herbarium for 177 years - alongside Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziania..

A multi-disciplinary team of Kew experts - spearheaded by botanical illustrator Lucy T. Smith and Kew's tropical horticulturist Carlos Magdalena - have now revealed the plant to be new to science – the first giant water lily "discovery" in more than a century..

Lucy and Carlos with Victoria boliviana in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens

The paper’s authors decided to name the species in honour of Bolivian partners and the South American home of the waterlily where it grows in the aquatic ecosystems of Llanos de Moxos.
With flowers that turn from white to pink and bearing spiny petioles, V. boliviana is now the largest waterlily in the world, with leaves growing as wide as 3 metres in the wild.
The current record for the largest species is held by La Rinconada Gardens in Bolivia where leaves reached 3.2 metres.

The announcement is of particular interest to botanical illustrators for two reasons:

the discovery was stimulated by Lucy Smith's major personal project to illustrate the giant water lilies at Kew - after she had illustrated the smallest waterlily in the world.
Lucy provided the initial important evidence to prompt a major scientific investigation by a team of people after she demonstrated that one of the waterlilies she was investigating, documenting and recording was actually different to the two known giant waterlilies, as illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch in the 19th century.

You can read Lucy's account of the project in her new blog post on the topic - which she has been writing for the last four years - and provides the botanical illustrator's perspective on this amazing story of plant discovery - see Victoria boliviana - a new species of Giant Waterlily | Lucy Smith Blog (4th July 2022)

Delimitation of the Giant Water Lily Victoria:
the Scientific Project and Article

The title and authors of the original research article "Revised Species Delimitation in the Giant Water Lily Genus Victoria (Nymphaeaceae) Confirms a New Species and Has Implications for Its Conservation"

So it came to pass that, this morning at 5am, a new scientific paper Revised Species Delimitation in the Giant Water Lily Genus Victoria (Nymphaeaceae) Confirms a New Species and Has Implications for Its Conservation was published in the journal "Frontiers in Plant Science".

This paper lays out the evidence for:

the discovery of the first giant waterlily of the Victoria species in over a century - to be called Victoria boliviana
the declaration of a NEW largest waterlily in the world.

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Young Botanical Artist Competition 2022: Call for Entries

30/6/2022

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There's a NEW Botanical Artist Competition for Young Botanical Artists - and this is about the Call for Entries.

The Young Botanical Artist Competition 2022 is being sponsored by Dr Shirley Sherwood in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

We believe there is significant talent among the 16-25 age group with a wealth of exciting work to be uncovered. This is a crucial moment to engage with the ever-growing genre of botanical art – the scientific capacity of botanical paintings and drawings to document plants and fungi is particularly vital in contemporary society as we work to preserve our planet’s biodiversity.

Summary of who/what/how to enter

Below is a summary of the "need to know" facts about the competition for those interested in entering. This covers:

Details of who can enter and what they can enter
Selection and judging
Prizes

PLUS Resources on this website

There are a few very relevant matters which are missing at the moment (eg entry form) - but I'm sure this will be fixed quickly.

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