NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

What's the difference between botanical art and flower painting?

31/1/2018

Those new to botanical art are often unfamiliar with the differences between botanical illustration, botanical art and flower painting.

This post provides:

a brief introduction to an explanation of the differences and where you can find more information on this topic
how the differences between botanical illustration and botanical art developed over time

What's the difference between botanical art, botanical illustration and flower painting?

On my website I have a page called What is Botanical Art?

At the top of the page there is a summary of the differences between:

botanical illustration - where the emphasis is on the identification of species and support for the scientific perspective and publication - hence an emphasis on monochrome illustrations
botanical art - which has aesthetic appeal and is always botanically accurate in terms of scale, form, structure and colour and might include the portrayal of habitat. However it is not always as complete as a scientific botanical illustration.
flower painting - which is much more about the creation of an aesthetically pleasing painting and is much less about botanical accuracy and plant identification.

Further down the page, I expand on

The Science of Botanical Illustration
The Artistry of Botanical Art

which cites definitions used for botanical illustration and botanical art - including those used by the RHS, ASBA and BAC. I also include links to other parts of the website which provide further information to support those who want to learn more about, for example, scientific botanical illustration.

How do you describe the differences between botanical art and illustration?

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What's the History of Botanical Art?

What is Botanical Art? also provides an introduction to the history of the development of botanical art and illustration and why these differences exist. It provides:

an overview of the history of the development of botanical art
highlighting the role of Herbals; the Age of Discovery - and the work done by botanical artists on voyages of exploration and discovery over the years; the role of Gardens and the Florilegium and finally the development of Contemporary Botanical Art in the twentieth century.
summarising the role played by key individuals as patrons or painters in developing both the science and artistry of botanical art and illustration. Most of these individuals have a dedicated page on this website where you can find out more about their contribution. (just tap the link in their names to view their page).

P. sukhakulii, C. lindeniana [Paphiopedilum and Cypripedium] (Watercolour on paper, 1989) © Estate of Pandora Sellars. Courtesy of RHS Library Collections

One of the important artists who contributed to the development of contemporary botanical art is Pandora Sellars - who worked as a botanical illustrator for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and designed her complex compositions as a trained artist.

She excelled at developing new ways to design botanical paintings to help understand the colour and form of plants in terms of both their flowers and leaves - and has influenced many botanical artists as a result.

I'm very pleased to announce that the Estate of Pandora Sellars and the RHS have given me permission to use an image of the orchid painting which is now part of the RHS Lindley Library Collection on this website. You can see it above. I'm guessing it will be the first view of this work for many people. To my mind, it's a perfect example of how it is possible to combine botanical illustration and botanical art!

Enjoy!

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Prescribing eyeglasses for botanical art

31/1/2018

This is about how to maintain eye health and how to get prescription eyeglasses which work best for painting detail. It includes one artist's experience of demonstrating to her optician what her prescription needs were - using her paintings and posture.

Working in detail, as botanical artists do, can mean your eyes become strained and deteriorate if you don't look after them and/or use proper lighting, magnification. You can be left feeling tired and unwell.

Obviously, botanical artists recognise the need for:

regular check-ups on their eyesight
proper magnification using quality kit
excellent lighting

However one option many may have not considered to date is:

showing your optician how you work - and then
investing in a special pair of glasses purely for painting.

Investing in a special pair of specs if you are very short-sighted, it was one of those light-bulb moments for me (although it may be obvious to everyone else) and has made a lot of difference. Strangely, the optician was very dubious as to whether it would be worthwhile and seemed quite surprised when I reported that I used them every day.
Kathy Pickles

The Botanical Artists Group (on Facebook) recently had an extensive discussion about eyesight and how best to get glasses which suit an artist's needs. One of the recommendations was to show the optician precisely the range of distances needed for glasses for painting.

So one artist did that - and this is her story of what happened next!

Prescribing eyeglasses for botanical art - Susan Tomlinson's story

Susan Tomlinson wrote yesterday in the Botanical Artists Group on Facebook about her experience of getting eyeglasses which were best suited to her way of working on botanical art.

Susan lives in Lubbock Texas and her banner pics on Facebook illustrate very clearly that she has got an excellent and well lit studio set-up for botanical painting. She has both good natural light and an array of good quality artificial lighting and magnification aids. So improving what she can see was entirely down to the glasses she uses.

This is her story..........(Note: I've emboldened key points within the story)

Susan Tomlinson - Botanical Artist

This is a follow up to an earlier thread about task-specific glasses for botanical painting. On the very good advice in that thread, I took some of my paintings in to my optometrist to show him what I actually paint.

I think this really helped a lot, because when you say you “paint”, people have a very different idea of what that means from what we actually do. It not only helped him see what I needed, he was also fascinated by the problem of creating glasses that would help me. (He even looked at one of the paintings under his microscope.)

Susan's studio - with lots of natural light, artificial lighting and magnification aids

So after trying out a few different powers of lenses, we settled on a pair of bifocals.

This is important, because while I normally wear progressive lenses, he explained that progressives would not have the precision for what I needed.

I told him that I had tried using some reading glasses I had bought online, but that they didn’t help, and he said that the quality of the optics of “over-the-counter” reading glasses is not as good as we need it to be.

Also, we chose

a bottom focal length for working on the painting, and
the top focal length for looking at my specimen.

(In each instance, I showed him approximately the distance the painting or specimen would be from my eyes.)

This means that I can’t really use the glasses for anything else, since anything beyond a couple of feet is out of focus for me.

We talked about trifocals, but decided this would make the bottom focal length too small to be useful for painting.

I used the glasses for a couple of weeks and was very pleased. I was able to paint without using a magnifying lens at all, which is very freeing.

It took some getting used to - not being able to see beyond two feet - but I wear the glasses on a cord, so when I need to look beyond, I just take them off.

Today was a follow up and after we talked a bit, he decided to tape a couple of lenses to the inside of the new glasses to see if I would benefit from going to a slightly higher power on the bottom lens. I took them home and painted with them for a while and was amazed. Honest to goodness, these glasses are a miracle.

So I called back and his optician was waiting for my call. He had already spoken to her about a possible tweak to the prescription and she was ready for it.

I mention this because I think that taking the paintings in is really what made the difference. He and his staff are really engaged in helping me get some glasses for painting.

I thought I’d post this in the hopes it might be useful to someone else in terms of:

the efficacy of using your paintings to explain the problems
the very useful information (I thought) about bifocals being better than progressives for the kind of painting we do.

Finally, I can also report at this writing that my eyes feel much more rested at the end of a long day of painting than they did before I had the task-specific glasses.

...and another thing...

On the basis of all this, I also took my paintings in to my Physical Therapy session a couple of weeks ago. I have been going to PT for a rotator cuff issue associated with a tennis injury, but I kept asking my PT about exercises that might help my posture while I paint.

It didn’t click with him about what I needed until I took my paintings in. Suddenly, that became part of the therapy.

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VIDEO of the SBA Annual Exhibition 2017

29/1/2018

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I knew that the Society of Botanical Artists were planning a video of their annual exhibition. This morning it's finally been published! I've embedded:

a large version on ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in the UK
a smaller version above.

It's well made - with nice music! I know how long these videos can take time to do, so I'm very impressed - particularly with the steady hand and the shot taken from up a step ladder! 2nd year student Grace Sutton currently studying film and television production at Ravensbourne University London is responsible for it. I believe she is an "SBA Relative".

'Changing Seasons' - Society of Botanical Artists Annual Exhibition in 2017

Sadly, the SBA will NOT be having an annual OPEN exhibition in England in 2018.
Billy Showell (President Designate) and her team are looking for alternative options for a future venue for this annual OPEN exhibition.

The SBA Winter Newsletter which I received at the weekend indicates there will be a number of smaller exhibitions and satellite events supported by SBA members - such as:

May 18 2018 - Supporting Botanical Art Worldwide at The Artworkers Guild, Bloomsbury, London
23-24 June 2018 - Exhibition at Woburn Abbey Garden Show

PLUS exhibitions by SBA members at botanical gardens in Spain and Germany

20 March - 20 May 2018 - Tulipa Tulipae, Madrid Botanical Gardens, Spain - comprising 87 paintings by 47 artists
26 October - 25 November 2018 - The Seasonal Garden, November Palmengarten, Frankfurt, Germany

PLUS lots of exhibitions by individual members and small groups.

I've now updated my Exhibitions Pages for all known botanical art exhibitions / exhibits - see

I've also got exhibition pages dedicated to Africa, Asia, Australasia and North America (and will set up one for South America very soon!)

Did you know you can get your botanical art exhibition listed?
Just use the form at the bottom of every exhibition page to send me the details.

For those wanting to improve their botanical art knowledge and skills
The Best Botanical Art and Illustration Instruction Books
(including the NEW book for 2018 about
"Botanical Painting" by Margaret Stevens PPSBA)
and
Botanical Art Classes, Courses and Tutors
around the world

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Botanical Art Worldwide now has a Facebook Page

26/1/2018

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Yesterday Botanical Art Worldwide launched its NEW Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/botanicalartworldwide/

This is a public page so can be accessed by anybody who is online irrespective of whether they are members of Facebook or not.

It will be a great way of keeping people up to date with how things are progressing in the different countries.
Then come the exhibitions, hopefully we'll see a lot of photos of the exhibitions and the artwork appearing on this page!

If you're already a member of Facebook you can like/follow the page.

As the post below indicates you can also follow events associated with all Botanical art Worldwide via the hashtag #BotanicalArtWorldwide

You can also share your own news - from your country's organising committee or your personal news - if you send a message to the Page (via Facebook).

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BISCOT Exhibition deadlines

23/1/2018

The equivalent of the RHS Botanical Art Exhibition in Scotland is BISCOT which is shorthand for Botanical Images Scotia.

BISCOT takes place every June at the Gardening Scotland Show held at the Royal Highland Showground at Ingliston, beside Edinburgh Airport. It's the largest plant fair in Scotland.

What makes BISCOT different is that it then moves to and is hung again in the John Hope Gateway Building at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE).

This Scottish based exhibition is held at Gardening Scotland under the auspices of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society and in conjunction with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. It is then relocated to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for three weeks. It aims to promote excellence in botanical painting and illustration. BISCOT is competitive and certificates are awarded in Gold, Silver-gilt, Silver and Bronze categories. The unique silver Mary Mendum Medal may be awarded for an exhibit of exceptional quality.

see file download below for the full details

Who is eligible to show at BISCOT 2018?

BISCOT runs on the same principles as the RHS Shows i.e. BISCOT has a "qualified" open entry.

The only people eligible to show at BISCOT 2018 are:

Anyone awarded a Gold or Silver-gilt award from an RHS Botanical Art Show
Graduates of the RBGE Botanical Illustration Course who hold a Diploma with Distinction
Artists who have passed the BISCOT assessment in 2017 or previously (within the time limit for approval)

The deadline to apply for space to exhibit at this year's Botanical Images Scotia (BISCOT) Exhibition in 2018 is 14th February 2018. i.e. you have three weeks left to get an application submitted.

BISCOT 2018 - the details

BISCOT 2018 will be open to the public from the 1st to the 3rd of June 2018 at Gardening Scotland.
Set up (by the exhibitors), judging and assessment will happen on 31st of May. Various medals will be awarded.
The Show then moves to RBGE and will be on display in the John Hope Gateway Building at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) from the 6th to the 21st of June 2018.

How to qualify to show in 2019 and beyond

There is no limitation on where artists live or work.
(International artists who do not live in the EU who are importing art for exhibitions in the EU will need to reference Customs and Excise requirements re VAT - see the section about VAT for Organisations, Exhibitions & Competitions in VAT for Artists on my Art Business Info site)

However if you are not an RHS medal winner (Gold or Silver Gilt) and have not graduated from RBGE Diploma with distinction, you first need to be qualify i.e. be approved to exhibit - and this happens a long time in advance of an exhibition.

The deadline to submit work or images to be considered for assessment for future exhibitions (2019 and onwards) is Friday 25 May 2018.

The following reproduces the details of the BISCOT assessment process - as both a PDF file and details quoted from the file.

biscot_assessment_may_2018_for_2019.pdf
File Size:	614 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

SUBMISSIONS: UK residents are required to submit 4 original works.

Non UK residents are required to send 4 jpeg images, via CD or USB (minimum 300dpi resolution). All files must be labelled with the title, artist’s name, size of the artwork when mounted and have an arrow pointing to the top right hand corner of the work and a scale indicator if necessary.

The application form and work is to be sent to: BISCOT ASSESSMENT SUBMISSION c/o The Education Department, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Artists must send their original works in reusable packaging. Carriage / postage for the return of works is to be arranged and paid by the artist. CDs / USBs are only returned if return postage and a self addressed envelope is supplied with the entry form.

JURORS: These are chosen from suitably experienced artists and botanists.

ELIGIBILITY: Entry is open to all artists whose work has been submitted and approved by the BISCOT assessment panel. These successful artists may apply for space to exhibit in subsequent years. Exceptionally, artists may be invited to exhibit without assessment. The RCHS reserves the right to reject work which it considers unsuitable, e.g. sub-standard to that sent for assessment or presented other than as described in the rules and regulations. The number of artists will be limited to the space available. Acceptable sizes are below. Size really does matter!

SUBJECT: The subject must be a botanical species.

MEDIA: Entries are to be two-dimensional, original botanical artwork. Watercolour is the preferred medium however coloured pencil, gouache, graphite and ink are also accepted.

SIZE: The maximum size is 36” x 30” h x w (91.5cm x 76cm) when mounted. Larger formats will be rejected.

INSURANCE: Notes regarding insurance, packaging and labelling can be downloaded from the BISCOT website.

Please note there is a limitation on "approved to exhibit"

If an artist has not exhibited within seven years following successful assessment, then work must be re-submitted for a new assessment. If the reason for not exhibiting has been lack of space, then the period of eligibility will be extended and the artist will be given priority in the next exhibition.

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Reasons why botanical art is not selected

19/1/2018

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This post is about why botanical art does not get selected for open exhibitions with high standards for botanical accuracy.

The Organising Committee of Botanical Art Worldwide 2018 : Thailand Edition has published a list of those who have passed the FIRST stage of selection. The second stage involves selection from actual artwork rather than digital images and associated information.

Their list of those progressing to Stage 2 also very usefully list the reasons why some plants / botanical art did NOT make it to the second round.

In truth, It's a very relevant summary of many of the reasons why botanical art frequently fails to get selected for botanical art exhibitions which ensure botanical rigour in selection. Only the native plant rationale is relevant to this particular exhibition.

Personally, I think it's a very educational listing and could usefully be studied by all students of botanical art.

So - thanks to Google Translate - here are their list of reasons.

Reasons why artworks were not selected

The Organising Committee describe the reasons as follows.

One or more of the reasons for some not being considered:

It is not native plant native to Thailand, but is imported into Thailand intentionally or unintentionally (called exotic plant). It can be found in the Encyclopaedia of Plants in Thailand. Or online media on topics such as origin, distribution, (native). Many plants are named. Not native to Thailand such as pineapple, papaya, tomatoes.
Patterns do not match botanical art.
Colours do not match reality in nature.
The size or proportion does not match the botanical accuracy.
Lack of showing the essential characteristics of the plant species, such as drawing "fruit under the leaf", but do not draw leaves.
Image composition is not complete. Or wrong from the truth
The size of the works does not meet the requirements of the rules.
Botanical name does not match plant type Or there is another message that is not valid. And appear on the picture.
The signature is too large. Or inappropriate
Draw from other photos or drawings that may not be properly licensed. There is a problem of copyright infringement.

NOTE: The image on the banner for the Botanical Art Worldwide 2018: Thailand Edition is by a watercolour painting by Sansanee Deekrajang of Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. also known as the 'sacred lotus'. This is the Kew species profile

You can read about Sansanee and see more of her work in my blog post Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medallists 2016 - from Asia

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Pandora Sellars Solo Exhibition at Shirley Sherwood Gallery

8/1/2018

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I'm very pleased to announce that there is to be a Retrospective Exhibition of the Paintings of Pandora Sellars - to celebrate her magnificent contribution to contemporary botanical art.

Arum lilies - signed Pandora Sellars 1996 (Shirley Sherwood Collection - commissioned 1995) Arum italicum, Arum maculatum & Arisarum proboscideum Watercolour on paper H: 350 , W: 470

Regular readers will be aware that Pandora Sellars passed away in May 2017. See

This exhibition is by way of a proper tribute to one of the very best botanical artists - and possibly the best leaf painter ever!

She has a special place in botanical art history as her solo exhibition at Kew in 1990 triggered Shirley Sherwood's interest in collecting botanical art.

She was also awarded the the Jill Smythies Award for excellence in botanical illustration by the Linnean Society in 1992.

Pandora Sellars (in 1997)

Paintings by Pandora Sellars - The Exhibition

The exhibition is being organised by the staff at Kew Gardens and will naturally be in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. It will open on 6th October 2018

I don't yet have the closing date but normally the exhibitions that open in the Autumn run through to the March of the following year.

The exhibition will comprise paintings from:

The Shirley Sherwood Collection - which includes 12 paintings (which are all listed in my Inventory of Paintings by Pandora Sellars - on my dedicated webpage - About Pandora Sellars
the permanent collection at Kew - Pandora painted very many paintings for Curtis Botanical Magazine and Botanical Monographs published by Kew Gardens
some private collections - and I'm hoping those will include the one relating to he Jersey Flora paintings.

Mark Frith with his first ever drawing of an ancient oak tree - displayed at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew.

Other exhibitions on at the same time will include:

A Legacy of Ancient Oaks - the graphite drawings Ancient Oaks by Mark Frith which were commissioned by the late Felix Dennis who died in 2014. He had a a passionate commitment to the heritage trees of England - and planted a forest and commissioned drawings of the ancient oaks that have lasted for hundreds of yeaers! See my blog post Recording Ancient and Heritage Trees for a complete list of all the oaks in the legacy left to been donated to Kew's Illustration Collection
the Rankafu Japanese Woodblock prints of orchids.

It's poignant that two of these exhibitions will occur because of the commitment and contributions of two people who died recently.

I'll write again about these exhibitions later this year when I have more information.

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