NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

A site update

28/11/2015

I've made a few changes to the 'Botanical Art and Artists' website.

Gardens are now a top-level category

First I changed the category hierarchy. The complete section relating to Botanical Gardens has moved out from under 'Botany' (where it was somewhat submerged) and now gets a top-level category in its own right.

After all where would botanical artists be without access to botanical gardens!

That means that 'Gardens' in the top menu now takes you direct to the several pages relating to Botanical Gardens on different continents around the world

EUROPE

THE AMERICAS

Botanical Gardens in the USA
Botanical Gardens in Canada (coming soon)

AUSTRALASIA & ASIA

Botanical Gardens in Asia
Botanical Gardens in Australasia (coming soon)

Any tips you have as to favourite botanical gardens around the world

The Princess of Wales Conservatory and Rock Garden at Kew Gardens

NEW - Botanical Dictionaries and Glossaries

I've published a new sub-category relating to Botanical Dictionaries and Glossaries. You'll find it under Plant Names and Botanical Latin in the dropdown menu.

This pulls together the best of what is available online - including Historical Dictionaries such as the 'The Treasury of Botany' edited by John Lindley ( after whom the Lindley Library and the Lindley Hall were named) and Thomas Moore.

A new template - and a slightly different look

Finally I changed the website template which means I now have a fully responsive template which does much better in the Bing Mobile Friendliness Test as well as the Google Mobile Friendly Test.

Why not check your own website and see how well it does!

Botanical Art and Artists should now look the same in colour and format terms whether viewed on a desk-top, tablet or smartphone. The only real difference is that the smartphone version loses the top navigation menu and acquires a 'hamburger' menu at top left. This drops down to give you the equivalent of the top menu for navigation purposes. Plus there everything is one column - and I've now learned how to format a site so that it flows logically on a mobile device! Section dividers and spacers are now my friends! :)

The new template also has a headline option which means - as in this 'News' section - that the words saying what each page are about might in future be moving up and onto an edge to edge image.

For those wanting to know which template it is...
I'm using Weebly and it's called "Clean Lines". I've changed the colours slightly. Weebly recently separated its templates into fully responsive and 'the rest' . That's when I found out I'd started this website on one which was mobile friendly but only up to a point. Hence the change!

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The Bauer Brothers & Natural History Museum Collections

21/11/2015

I've been updating the website for a significant number of aspects relating to the Natural History Museum. By the time I got to the end it seemed appropriate to highligth this via a post!

On the UK Exhibitions page, you'll now find a new section covering exhibitions at the Museum and an entry for the NEW exhibition in the Images of Nature Gallery.

Title: The Bauer Brothers: Masters of Scientific Illustration
Venue: Images of Nature Gallery (on the ground floor in the Blue Zone - see the Map of the NHM (pdf)
Dates: 7 November 2015 - 26 February 2017
Scope: illustrations by two of the most famous botanical and natural history artists of all time. Franz Bauer (1758-1840) was employed as "Botanick Painter to his Majesty" and drew all the new flowering plants that arrived at Kew Gardens from plant explorations all over the world. The younger brother Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) spent most of his career as a natural history artist and travelled the world on various expeditions. He's best known as the botanical and natural history artist on an expedition to explore and record the coastline of Australia.
Book: Published in association with the exhibition The Bauer Brothers: Images of Nature

I've not been to see this exhibition as ye but plan to see it very soon. Anybody travelling to London over the Christmas/New Year period would be well advised to make time in their day to see it. I've seen some of their work before at the NHM and it's stunning!

The Bauer Brothers "excelled in learning the principles of botanical illustration according to the Linnaean system of classification. This technique typically depicts the entire plant in flower, but separately represents the bud and fruit, often dissected to show the internal structure."

On the Permanent Collections (UK) Page, the section highlighting the Natural History Museum now includes links to:

Women artists - more than 120 women artists have work in the Museum's Library and Archives
The Bauer brothers collection
Modern botanical illustration
The Linnaean collection
The Darwin collection

On the Herbaria, Seed Banks and Fungaria page, you'll find it now lists the range of botanical collections in the Herbarium of the Natural History Museum. You can see digital images of a lot of the herbarium speciments in the collections by searching the associated databases.

These include collections which came from:

George Clifford (1685-1760), a wealthy Anglo-Dutch merchant. This is significant because....

Linnaeus worked at Clifford's estate near Haarlem between 1735 and 1737. Linnaeus described the plants growing there and wrote the Hortus Cliffortianus

Paul Hermann - He was the Medical Officer to the Dutch East India Company in Sri Lanka between 1672 and 1677 and his collection of plants and flowers is one of the first major collections of the botany of the East Indies.
John Clayton - his specimens have considerable importance in botanical nomenclature.
Sir Hans Sloane - the noted physician, scientist and collector, the President of the Royal Society from 1727 to 1741 and the man behind one of the most signficant collections and gifts to the Museums.

Call for Botanical Art Courses, Classes and Workshops in 2016

18/11/2015

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End of the Class: Teacher's Summary of homework for the holidays! (see source at end)

Information about Tuition in Botanical Art and Courses, Classes and Workshops is at present contained on the following pages on this website:

Diplomas and Certificates
Fellowships, Scholarships and Residencies
Tuition and Workshops - Tutors' page

Future Workshops, Classes and Courses in 2016 in:

I want to update all these pages for students planning what they want to do next year.

What I'm looking for are the names of established and reputable tutors - plus workshops, classes and short courses run by institutions in 2016

I'm also wanting to develop similar pages for tuition opportunities available in South America, Europe, and Asia. I'd be very happy to receive information about opportunities on these continents - however I'm afraid this must be in English.

PLEASE HELP

If you are an established artist or an educational institution providing tuition in botanical art and/or illustration by way of Diplomas, Certificates, short courses, classes or workshops please let me know:

WHERE prospective students can find you online
WHAT sort of tuition you deliver
HOW LONG you have been teaching
how I can conteact you via email if I have any queries

Please note the form goes direct to me and is NOT published.

I'm not promising to list everybody who writes but do aim to list as many reputable botanical art tutors as possible.

Students can also complete the form and recommend tutors who they think deserve to be on the list. If you are a student please indicate all the data required above AND when you did a course with this tutor.

Thanks for your help - in anticipation of a good response!

Image: this is the homework for the summer given to Diploma students at the Chelsea School of Botanical Art by Lucy T. Smith. Lucy is an award winning and professional botanical illustrator who produces illustrations for Kew Gardens and Curtis botanical magazine - and teaches short courses for botanical art schools.

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18th Annual International hosted by ASBA and the Hort

10/11/2015

The image is the cover of the catalogue for the 18th Annual International of the American Society of Botanical Artists and The Horticultural Society of New York opened last week at the the 1stdibs gallery on the 10th floor New York Design Center, 200 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY.

This important exhibition of contemporary botanical art by some of the best botanical artists in the USA and elsewhere is on display until 20th December 2015. That gives people lots of scope to see it if you live in New York or are in New York for Thanksgiving or the run-up to Christmas.

I must confess I'd love to see it and have been scouring the images on Facebook of those who attended it!

The awards

Fiona Strickland won the The Hort’s Best in Show Award with Rhododendron ‘Horizon Monarch’
Betsy Rogers-Knox won the ASBA Eleanor Wunderlich Award with Dragon Arum Dragon Arum Dracunculus vulgaris
Asuka Hishiki won the Helen Gray Garber Award with her Turnips. Brassica rapa
Estelle deRidder won the Cheap Joe’s Award with Pincushion Protea Leucospermum cordifolium
Lara Call Gastinger won the Susan Frei Nathan Fine Works on Paper, LLC Award with her sepia watwercolour painting of Collections: Abelmoschus, Platanus, Rhexia, Physalis, Hibiscus, Ipomoea, Clematis, Scabiosa, Vitis, Rosa, Hemerocallis, Mimosa, Iris, Smilax, Allium, Aquilegia by
Melissa Toberer won the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Award for Print or Drawing with Iris germanica

Those getting Honourable Mentions were Mali Moir, Rosalind Allchin and Carol Woodin

You can read a more extensive post about the exhibition - including a list of all the selected artists with links to their website - on my main blog - Fiona Strickland wins The Hort's "Best in Show" Award at 18th Annual International

My thanks go to Carol Woodin, the ASBA Exhibition Director, for the supply of images for both posts.

NEW: Botanical Gardens in the USA

6/11/2015

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Early photographic view of Washington, D.C. from the Capitol looking west-southwest - with the Botanic Garden under construction (Wikimedia Commons)

Today I've published a new page on this website which is far from complete. You can find the new page listed in the section devoted to Botanical Gardens & Herbaria.

The new page is about Botanical Gardens in the USA.

There are so many botanical gardens in the USA it's very difficult to know where to start and which to include. I've started by highlighting some of the more important gardens. More will be included over time.

If you have a particular favourite please let me know what it is and why you find it helpful or like it so much.

Tips for botanical artists using botanical gardens anywhere in the world are also welcome at any time.

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Botanical Artists of Canada - Annual Exhibition 2015

3/11/2015

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Botanical Treasures at the Woodland Edge

The 2015 Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists of Canada is currently on display at The Papermill Gallery at the Todmorden Mills Heritage site in Toronto.

The focus of this juried exhibition is on plants that grow in the varied and ecologically important habitat at the edge of the woods.

The exhibition runs until Sunday, 8th November 2015. The Gallery is open from 12 noon to 4pm from Wednesday to Friday and 12 noon to 4.30pm on Saturday and Sunday. The exhibition has been co-ordinated by Karen Logan.

Reception and Awards

Over 100 people attended the Opening Reception. Awards were made as follows. The links in the names are to their websites and are only included the first time of mention.

JURORS' AWARDS

First Place – Nellie Sue Potter for Wood Strawberry
Second Place – Lilyane Coulombe for Iris Versicolour
Third Place – Linda le Geyt for Intricate Sumara

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Lynette Carrington-Smith for Somerset Hedgerow
Lilyane Coulombe for White turtlehead
Elaine Funnell for Kinnikinnick
Elaine Funnell for Nature Notes
Louise Hill for False Lily of the Valley
Linda le Geyt for Fruits of Summer
Karen Logan for White Pine, Cone

Exhibition Jurors

The Jurors for the exhibition were

Kathryn Chorney - Professor, Academic Advisor, Bachelor of Illustration Program, Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design at Sheridan College.
Shelley Wall - professor in the Biomedical Communications program at Toronto University, with a background in both fine art and scientific/medical illustration.
Alex Henderson - Royal Botanical Gardens' Curator of Collections/Horticulturist

The judges awarded first, second and third place awards and seven honourable mentions and in their talk discussed why each of the 10 pieces stood out for them. It was a huge learning opportunity for everyone.

I understand that the SBAC Executive Group will discuss ways of creating an online exhibition of the artwork exhibited on the society's website - together with the Judges' comments.

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