NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Strawberry Hill, Shirley Sherwood and Christobel King

31/3/2016

There are two upcoming events which will interest botanical artists and botanical art fans with reach of Strawberry Hill House at 268 Waldegrave Road, Twickenham, London TW1 4ST

The website unfortunately is very 'sticky' when it comes to trying to book an event so you will need to persevere. You might find it easier to telephone them.

Strawberry Hill House from the garden following the restoration

Exhibition: A Collector's Collection: Dr Shirley Sherwood Selects Botanical Art

Venue: Strawberry hill House
Dates: Tuesday 1 March 2016 - Tuesday 31 May 2016 - during house opening times
Booking: none required

This is an an exhibition of botanical art from the collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE. It includes drawings and paintings which represent plants either selected by Horace Walpole for his garden at Strawberry Hill or which he would have seen in the other fashionable gardens of his time.

Botanical Painting at Strawberry Hill - with Christobel King

Venue: Strawberry Hill House
Date: Saturday 23 April, 10am - 4pm
Booking Fee: £50 The ticket includes all art materials, and morning and afternoon refreshments.

A botanical painting workshop with renowned botanical illustrator and author Christabel King. This will feature:

flower painting using pencil and watercolour techniques.
making preparatory sketches for composition
the application of watercolour paint using washes and fine brushwork.

Event: A Collector's Collection: Lecture by Dr Shirley Sherwood

Lecture
Venue: Walpole's State Apartment, Strawberry Hill House
Date: Wednesday 4 May, 7:00pm
Fee: The website would not co-operate and yield this - see if you have better luck than I did!

Dr Sherwood will discuss the process of selecting pieces for her exhibition at Strawberry Hill, her love for the artistic recording of plants and flowers, and her experience of collecting in this genre.

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Christobel King and the Margaret Mee Artist Scholars

30/3/2016

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It was a delight to meet Christobel King and Gustavo Marigo at the recent Private View for the Brazil - a powerhouse of plants exhibition at Kew.

Gustavo is the current Margaret Mee Artist Scholar who started his studies at Kew Gardens in 2015. I was also present as Christobel introduced him to Álvaro Xavier Núñez who is one the best known of the contemporary Brazilian botanical artists

Gustavo Marigo (left) and Christobel King (right) in front of some of her paintings at the current exhibition about Brazilian plants and artists

The Margaret Mee Artist Scholars

You can read about how the Fellowship Programme which was set up in her memory and how it came about:

on this website (see About Margaret Mee) and
on the Kew website - the Margaret Mee Fellowship Programme

Below is the list of names of all the Artist Scholars from Brazil to date who have been sponsored by the Margaret Mee Fellowship Programme.

List of Artist Scholars in the exhibition at Kew

It was fascinating to find out from Christobel that she spent three years learning the Portuguese language so she could be more effective in her teaching of the artist scholars from Brazil.

More recently , personal circumstances and the need for Christobel to have a break to write her book (see below) required a short break in the programme.

However the programme has now recommenced and the 2015 scholar is currently studying at Kew and a new one will be appointed for 2016.

Gustavo Marigo with his botanical paintings of plants of Brazil

You can also read more about what has happened to the various Margaret Mee Scholars from the past in my NEW Page about the botanical artists of South America.

The current exhibition also includes a gallery devoted to their work.

The long gallery of paintings by the Artist Scholars.

Paintings by Fatima Zagonel - the 1999 Artist Scholar who studied at Kew

Christobel King and "The Kew Book of Botanical Illustration"

You can find about the techniques that Christobel King uses to teach students of botanical art who come to Kew in her newly published book. You can find out more details of this book on this page on this website.

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Private View of "Brazil - a Powerhouse of Plants"

23/3/2016

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Last night I attended the Private View of "Brazil - a Powerhouse of Plants" which is currently on display at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. The exhibition continues until 29 August 2016.

This exhibition focuses on plants of Brazil in general and botanical artwork made by Margaret Mee in particular. It also includes paintings by other artists - including the Margaret Mee Scholars - of which more tomorrow.

As usual, it comprises images from the Kew Collection and the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

View of the large gallery and the exhibition of paintings by Margaret Mee

Richard Deverell, the Director of Kew Gardens introduced the exhibition

The Director of Kew Gardens, Richard Deverell, emphasised the fact that Brazil is the most floralistically diverse country in the world. Some 46,000 species can be found growing in the country of which about half are endemic to Brazil and grow nowhere else. By way of comparison, the UK has about 2,000 species.

The Royal Botanic Gardens have had very strong connections with Brazil for quite a while. (The Kew website highlights the number of projects Kew is involved within tropical America)

The first Flora of Brazil was published in collaboration with Kew in 2010 and there are plans in hand for the production of an encyclopaedia of the complete flora of Brazil.
Current joint projects include creating a seed bank.
Kew is collaborating on Reflora - a project to a virtual herbarium to display the images of Brazilian plants that are housed in foreign herbaria. More than 200,000 Herbarium specimens from Kew have been digitised and are now part of the Virtual Flora project
Since 2012, Brazilian scientists have been working at Kew and there are some 35 presently working in the laboratories.
the Margaret Mee Scholarship programme has funded the training and development of botanical illustrators from Brazil

He also highlighted now botanical illustrators of the past used to pursue their plants with 'steely determination' and how Margaret Mee used to pack a revolver along with her paints and brushes on her earliest trips into the Amazon Rain Forest.

He applauded the exhibition as presenting the chance to explore the range and diversity of Brazilian flora - without the need to pack a revolver!

The organisation of the images between the different galleries

Shirley Sherwood highlighted the fact that the exhibition includes both the very first painting in Brazil done by Margaret Mee - the Cannonball tree - and the very last - the Moonflower Cactus.

She described the contents of the different galleries and what the artists in each contributed to the overall exhibition.

Gallery 1 includes paintings by the early explorers including Sydney Parkinson who was one of the artists on the Endeavour.
Gallery 2 which features comparisons between past artists and those of the present - which is a feature of Shirley Sherwood's books and a number of exhibitions at Kew. It serves to highlight just how good contemporary artists are!
Gallery 3 includes paintings by the Demonte family who were a dynasty of botanical painters in Brazil
Gallery 4 highlights the work of the award winning artist Alvaro Núñez. His paintings focus on the plants of the savanna, Amazonia and Pantanal.
Gallery 5 - the large gallery - focuses on the paintings of Margaret Mee
Gallery 6 - contains the paintings of the Margaret Mee Scholars (Botanical Artists)

Alvaro Núñez with three of his botanical paintings in watercolour

There were lots of people from all over the world at the PV including:

Alvaro Nunes - one of the leading contemporary Brazilian botanical artist. One of the galleries provides an exhibition of his simply stunning paintings. He specialises in painting plants from all the different ecosystems within Brazil.
Ruth L A Stiff - who is the curator of international exhibitions at Kew and wrote the book "The Flowering Amazon" about Margaret Mee's paintings. The book accompanied the exhibition of her paintings in 16 different venues across the USA
Cynthia Rice ASBA was visiting from the USA and was able to meet Shirley Sherwood
Annette de Jonquieres who is the first Danish botanical artist that I've ever met!
Gustavo Marigo from Brazil who is the 2016 Margaret Mee Scholar (of which more tomorrow)

Cynthia Rice, Treasurer of the ASBA and Dr Shirley Sherwood with one of her paintings by Margaret Mee

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NEW: All about painting on Vellum

20/3/2016

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Botanical artists are becoming more interested in painting on vellum of late.
This post introduces All About Vellum - a new webpage on this site. It provides an overview of painting on vellum plus tips and techniques and links to more information and suppliers

The new page on this website is located in the EDUCATION section and is called just 'Vellum" in the drop down menu.

It includes all the best references I know about:

Vellum and Art
What is vellum and the different types of vellum
How to paint on vellum including a summary of tips and techniques
Suppliers of vellum in the UK and USA

If you have any suggestions for more great links to useful resources please leave a comment and state the link.

All About Vellum for Botanical Art and Artists

All About Vellum - a new page on Botanical Art and Artists

The page includes a video I made at one of the demonstrations at last years annual exhibition by the Society of Botanical Artists. Shevaun Doherty (who is the new tutor on painting vellum for the SBA's Distance Learning Diploma Course) demonstrated how a pink paint could not be lifted from watercolour paper - but could be lifted to leave a clean surface from a piece of vellum.

Of course if you want to get the paint to stay put you also need to master the art of painting with a barely damp brush!

Shevaun will be demonstrating again at the SBA 2016 Annual Exhibition. Her session on "Painting on Vellum' is scheduled for 1pm to 5pm on Friday 15th April.

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Strongylodon macrobotrys - finding a Jade Vine to paint

18/3/2016

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There are some plants where you have to hunt around to find a specimen. In the UK one such is Strongylodon macrobotrys also known as the Jade Vine

I found three specimens in the glass houses at the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on Wednesday (see below). However the light was really weird because there was so much growth above and it was very difficult to appreciate the turquoise jade tones of this wonderful plant.

The Jade Vine in the Glass House at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden

However the Jade Vine in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens presents no such problems.

When it flowers it generally enjoys very good light while not being in sunlight - so excellent for appreciating and capturing the real colours of this wonderful plant. It's also a mature plant so blooms at different times as you can below.

You can find it hanging just next to the door to the side Gallery. This photo was taken in April two years ago.

The Kew Gardens Jade Vine in the Princess of Wales Conservatory

This is the Kew Gardens website on the topic of Strongylodon macrobotrys (jade vine). This provides exceptional scientific and horticultural information about the plant and also how to propagate it.

I gather there is also a specimen in the Palm House but I've not found that one yet!

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News about Fabriano Artistico and Classico 5 - and two new papers

17/3/2016

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Changes to the surface of Fabriano HP Papers

Very many botanical artists have been discussing the changes they have detected in the HP surface of NEW supplies of Fabriano Classico 5 - and also Fabriano Artistico - in recent months.

There's rather a lot of botanical artists who are not very happy with the change.

This morning I published a post on Making A Mark which summarises the current situation as I understand it.

Fabriano, R K Burt and St Cuthberts Mill - and fine art watercolour paper for precision painting - summarises:

experiences to date
what might be the reasons for the change
what alternatives are available - including two new papers by St. Cuthberts Mill.

Obviously artists wanting to find a surface comparable to that they have been used in the past are going to start looking at alternatives if Fabriano do not address the problem people have been experiencing.

I'll certainly be wanting to highlight possible alternatives as and when they are identified on this website.

Two new possibilities are papers just starting production at St Cuthberts Mill in Somerset - which produces Saunders Waterford and Bockingford.

Papers by Saunders Waterford have not been popular with botanical artists in the past mainly due to the fact that:

the HP surface was not smooth enough
the size was too soft and colours sink into the paper.

I'm led to understand by RK Burt, who are a wholesale paper supplier of all makes of fine art paper to retailers in the UK, that St Cuthberts Mill has recently changed its technology and can now produce much smoother paper.

As a result they have produced two new papers:

a NEW version of Saunders Waterford Hot Press Paper
Botanical Ultra Smooth - which may well suit those who have previously used Fabriano 5.

See my blog post for more details.

Samples of the paper have already been distributed to artists at the recent RHS show and more samples will be available at the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists. Feedback about the papers in use is now being generated - and is also welcomed.

Samples of the two new papers being produced by St Cuthberts Mill. In reality the Botanical Ultra Smooth is whiter than the SW HP Paper - and the latter is the exact same shade as Fabriano Extra White

Obviously whether or not you have yet experienced any problems with stocks of Fabriano paper will very much depend on:

when they were made
which retailer you bought them from
to a certain extent what sort of technique you use for botanical painting.

Do please feel free to comment on your own personal experience - and your preferred surfaces for botanical art.

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Kew Workshop: Botany for Botanical Illustrators

15/3/2016

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A Botany workshop for people who draw and paint plants and flowers is a fairly rare event.

On 9-10th July 2016 Anne Bebbington, who is one of the leading tutors on this topic (see below), is delivering a weekend Botany for Botanical Illustrators Workshop at Kew Gardens.

The thing is it's not on the website, it's not in the Short Courses List and it's not on the Calendar!

In fact, the only place you can find out that it exists is Kew's spring/summer talks and courses brochure and which can be downloaded from their website (click the link above to download the brochure and find out the course fee)

As featured in Kew's Spring/Summer Short Courses Brochure

A two-day course for botanical artists who want to know more about their subjects. The practical sessions will demonstrate how the study of a plant can be a fascinating journey of discovery, informing your artwork by helping you to understand its structure and how it works....The emphasis in these workshops will be on practical botanical work. There will an opportunity to do some drawing, so please bring sketchbooks and pencils.

About Anne Bebbington

Dr. Anne Bebbington is the author of Understanding the Flowering Plants: A Practical Guide for Botanical Illustrators which was published in March 2015. Her qualifications are that as follows:

she trained as a botanist
worked for over 30 years for the Field Studies Council and as an environmental educator.
became a botanical illustrator, and
she is a past President of the Institute of Analytical Plant Illustration.

More about Botany

If you're interested in finding out more about Botany but can't attend the course, you can try:

the Botany Section of this website - where you can see the range of botanical topics covered by this website
The Best Botany Books for Botanical Artists and Illustrators page - where you will find out more about Anne's book and others on the same topic.

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