NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

The 20 Most Popular Pages about Botanical Art

31/12/2019

Today I'm sharing the 20 most popular pages on Botanical Art and Artists (excluding specific artists) over 2018-19.

See if you can predict what will be popular.
Do tell me if you're surprised by any of the rankings. I know I was! It's made me rethink some future plans - and also identified pages I need to work on some more.

One of the ways I try to improve Botanical Art and Artists is by paying attention to what interests visitors to the site. That's why I regularly look at the website statistics. Periodically I pull a pdf file of Google Analytics and take a look at which pages which get the most traffic and which pages which get the lowest and the highest bounce rates.

I've decided to limit the timeframe for the count to 2018 and 2019 as I've introduced quite a few new pages since it started, over 4.5 years ago, in April 2015. However sorting out the ranked order based on my Google Analytics data was not at all easy and I ended up using an Excel spreadsheet and sorting on two data sets!

BELOW:

Check to see if there are any popular pages you've missed on a website which now has well over 1,000 web pages and blog posts.
Visit the pages - links are embedded in the titles of the top 20 web pages ranked below in order of popularity

1. Past Masters of Botanical Art & Illustration (1500-1900)
This one is way out in front and has been ever since I created the site. It gets more hits than the home page! This particular page is really interesting as it highlights and summarises some of the famous botanical artists and illustrators and Past Masters - between 1500 and 1900 - from the UK, France, Netherlands / Flemish, Germany & Austria, Italy, Australasia, Africa - specifically South Africa, North and Central America and South America. Plus and other notable artists working within botanical art and illustration. (Note Famous Asian Botanical Artists (600 - 1500) from China, India and Japan are on a separate page - and I probably need to create a seperate page for Europe too)

2. NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists
My News Blog started after the main site was created but has become very popular ever since. The number of subscribers also continues to climb

3. Tips and Techniques
Extremely popular right from the beginning. A good tip for any botanical artist wanting to create traffic to their website is to provides tips and techniques - for free - on your website or blog or social media site. People love them. Next best tip is alert me to your tip and if it's good enough then I'll add it into this resource page and you'll get even more traffic!

4. Best Botanical Art Instruction Books
A very popular page because I only list the books I rate and I also provide lots of reviews - and some of them are in-depth. This is a VERY long page with LOTS links to sub-pages which review books by specific people

5. What is Botanical Art?
The perennial question - hence the ranking. I try to provide an answer by quoting others on this topic. I add to it when I find a great new comment or insight.

6. Scientific Botanical Illustration
How to draw plants to scientific standards. This page includes basic instruction on what to do and what not to do when illustrating plants to scientific standards; drawing aids which promote accuracy in measurement and rendering in scientific illustration links to practical tips and techniques for botanical illustration from leading scientific botanical illustrators and organisations providing support for scientific illustration. Plus articles about the history of scientific botanical illustration and the development of contemporary Flora.

7. Botanical Artists and Illustrators UK
This page highlights artists and illustrators creating contemporary botanical art and illustration of distinction who are based on or born in the UK - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This page which has way more artists than any other continent or country in terms of people who qualify for the listing.

8. Plant Names and Botanical Latin
When recording a plant name wrong can affect the colour of medal you receive at an RHS Botanical Art Show it's worth making an effort to understand how plant names are constructed and how to write them. (There's a few artists who wish growers made the same effort!). Plus it's a topic which does not get a lot of coverage online!

9. How to draw and paint leaves and trees
I've been saying for a long time, botanical art is not just about painting flowers! The second thing I've remarked on more than a few times is there is a major market for the author who writes the definitive book on how to paint plants and trees. I get asked by publishers for names of artists I'd recommend for specific topics. If you're interested contact me.

This page is the "top tips" page dedicated to tips and techniques for how to draw and paint botanically correct trees and leaves. Drawing and watercolour painting instruction includes step by step demonstrations, videos and books. I'm currently working my way through an analysis of every instruction book in terms of how good it is in providing instruction for leaves and/or trees.

10. Contemporary Botanical Artists and Illustrators
This is the gateway to all the pages about the contemporary botanical artists and illustrators listed on this website who draw, paint and print plants and flowers AND have been recognised for their excellence and mastery of their individual approach to botanical art and illustration [Note Continent / country listings are not definitive. They're being updated all the time]

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The Top 10 Botanical Artists & Illustrators

30/12/2019

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The 10 most popular botanical artists and botanical illustrators from the past - with dedicated pages on my website - are ranked and listed below.

To date the 18th and 20th centuries are doing very well. The spread across the centuries is as follows:

1600s: 1
1700s: 3
1800s: 2
1900s: 4

It's very interesting that the top three female botanical artists are all people that I would think of as being part of the great "exploration" heritage of botanical art. They used their own initiative to decide where to go, what to paint and how to present it in terms of contemporary ways of exhibiting and publicising their work.

Some food for thought maybe as people compile their "to do" lists for next year?

Links to the dedicated web pages for each artist are embedded in the names of the botanical artists listed below. The ranked order is based on the Google Analytics data for my website for the last four years.

1. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647 - 1717)
Her popularity is, in part, influenced by all the events and celebrations of her life generated by the 300th anniversary of her death in 2017. There was a lot of interest in her life during that period - and since.

2. Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759 - 1840)
Probably one of the most popular botanical artists with the general public. Due in no small part to the considerable reproduction of his paintings for wall decorations. However his achievements in terms of "series" paintings were considerable and varied - particularly Les Liliacees (1802 - 15) and Les Roses (1817 - 21). He also has the unique distinction of painting on commission for both Queen Marie Antoinette and the Empress Josephine Bonaparte!

3. Margaret Mee (1909 - 1998)
A lot of her paintings of plants in the Amazon Rainforest were exhibited in the "Brazil - a Powerhouse of Plants" exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens in 2016. Her focus on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has also seen her much referenced in recent times

4. Marianne North (1830 - 1890)
There are not many artists who can say they've travelled to and painted plants in

North and Central America: the USA, Canada, Jamaica and the Caribbean,
South America - Brazil and Chile.
Europe - Tenerife
Asia - Japan, Singapore, Sarawak, Java, Sri Lanka, India,
Australasia - Australia, New Zealand,
Africa - South Africa and the Seychelles

I think this botanical artist enjoys a lot of fame due to having her very own gallery at Kew. If you want to make sure your botanical art continues to be seen after your are no longer around, it's a great idea to build a dedicated art gallery to do just that! Plus her artwork is unique and well remembered once seen for how it is hung in the Marianne North Gallery.

5. Rory McEwen (1932 - 1982)
Probably the best known and most popular of more recent contemporary artists. As 'The Colours of Reality' Retrospective Exhibition in 2013 at Kew demonstrated, this is an artist who has been a considerable influence on many of the most talented leading botanical artists of today

6. Elizabeth Blackwell (1707 - 1758)
A lady botanical artist with a fascinating backstory who painted plants growing in the Chelsea Physic Garden. Blackwell compiled and published her hand drawn, engraved and coloured "A Curious Herbal" (1737-1739) in order to raise funds to free her husband from debtors prison.

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7. Sydney Parkinson (1745 - 1771)
The botanical artist who sailed on the Endeavour, with Captain Cook, to South America, Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia - and died on the way back. He's well known in connection to the development of his drawings and paintings for Banks Florilegium.

8. Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-1770)
The leading botanical artist in Europe in 1750! This German born artist was a prodigious artist who produced an enormous number of high quality illustrations on commission for various botanical publications and plant collectors. He was one of the most influential botanical artists of all time due to his development of the Linnaean style of botanical illustration. He is also one of my favourites!

9. Arthur Harry Church (1865-1937)
A botanist who focused on the morphology and structure of plants and began to illustrate to demonstrate his findings. He has since earned a reputation as a scientific botanical illustrator of note.

10. Pandora Sellars (1936 - 2017)
The youngest of the botanical artists in this list and the one who died most recently. She is widely considered to be a contemporary equivalent to the botanical masters of the past and one of the top botanical painters of all time. Botanical Theatre: The Art of Pandora Sellars (1936-2017) - a retrospective exhibition of her paintings on display at Kew demonstrated that for those who were fortunate enough to be able to visit and see her work

Tomorrow - for the last blog post of the decade, I'll be reviewing the Top 20 Pages on my Botanical Art & Artists website based on the number of pageviews they've enjoyed since they were created.

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Seasons Greetings and the story of the Poinsettia

24/12/2019

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My very best wishes in this Festive Season to all the very many botanical art fans, artists and readers of News about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists - especially you and yours.

Illustration of Poinsettia Pulcherrima 17 ( Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd. Ex Klotzsch, poinsettia, poinsetta)

Below are two stories about the poinsettia plant often associated with Christmas. It involved two great travellers:

one is about a female botanical artist called Berthe Hoola van Nooten - who created the image you see above - along with a number of others which were published in her book about the flowers, fruit and leaves of Java.
the second is about how the Poinsettia got its common name.

Book Title: Fleurs, Fruits et Feuillages Choisis de L'Ile de Java, Peints d'après Nature by Berthe Hoola van Nooten
Published: Bruxelles : C. Muquardt, [1880]
Current name of the plant: Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd. ex Klotzsch
Common name: Poinsettia
The coloured bracts of the Poinsettia are often mistaken for flowers but are in fact leaves.

About Berthe Hoola van Nooten

It's interesting how many female botanical artists (Maria Sibylla Merian and Elizabeth Blackwell) have

undertaken significant projects associated with botanical art in the face of an economic (and other) challenges.
produced and arranged publications of the resulting botanical art - with associated botanical information about individual plants.

It's quite a significant contrast with some of their male counterparts!

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A watercolour catalogue to drool over!

20/12/2019

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I'm a very big fan of comprehensive and well organised catalogues of art materials. I like people who take the trouble to provide information about the paints and other colour media that artists use - including pigment numbers and lightfastness ratings.

I also know from talking about the art materials used for botanical art with very many botanical artists that there's a keen interest amongst very many artists about what's best, what's on offer and what's new.

"New", of course, is a relative term. If you've not previously been aware of a brand, colours, associated materials then it's "new to you".

Colour - Introduction

Which is long way round of identifying that Jackson's Art have produced an extremely impressive 132 page guide in its Watercolour Catalogue 20/21. I've never ever seen one before that beats this one - and I've looked at lots over the years.

It covers:

colour media - watercolour paint / inks / sticks / pencils, gouache, graphite and charcoal
surface - watercolour paper / boards / panels / blocks and pads and cartridge pads
brushes - of various kinds
Studio - mediums, palettes, easels, storage and accessories

It's not available as a document. It's only available as a digital file. I don't blame them - it would cost a lot of money to produce as a print document and maintain the very necessary print quality on the colours and shades. Viewed on screen, what colours look is entirely down to how good your screen is and whether it is white balanced.

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Latin American Exhibit in 'Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art' at Kew

18/12/2019

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The exhibit of contemporary botanical art from Latin America can be seen in Gallery 2 within Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. The exhibition continues until 15 March 2020.

It covers botanical art by contemporary botanical artists past and present working in Brazil and Mexico . You can read more about the artists in my earlier blog post Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists. They include Margaret Mee, who was born in England but did most of her work while living in Brazil.

BELOW you can see

photos of the paintings in the exhibition
with names of the plants, credits for the artists
plus explanations of and/or any stories I know about the plants and/or artists!

Three paintings using pencil and gouache by Margaret Mee occupy one wall. They demonstrate the variation in the paintings she produced. Her work is in included in the section due her dedication to painting the plants in the Amazon rainforest basin. Her work also stimulated the Margaret Mee Fellowship Programme at Kew.

Her paintings in the exhibition are:

Neoglaziovia variegate 1964;
Philodendron - pictured with the Amazon habitat where it was growing and
Clusia grandiflora 1987 (pencil and Gouache on paper)

Paintings by Margaret Mee | Left to right: Neoglaziovia variegate 1964; Philodendron and Clusia grandiflora 1987 (pencil and Gouache on paper)

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Call for Entries: Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition 2020

16/12/2019

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The Call for Entries for Plantae 2020 - the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists has been published. Below you will find a summary of:

what you need to know if you want to enter
the deadline for entries
how to enter
the exhibition - venue and dates

plus pics from last year's exhibition

Call for Entries

You can find the details of how to enter on the dedicated website https://soc-botanical-artists.oess1.uk/

The SBA invites you to submit your best work!

Exhibiting excellence in every botanical art form

In summary:

Eligible media (2D): paintings and drawings in watercolour, oils, gouache, graphite, colour pencil, pen & ink and hand-pulled fine art prints,
Eligible Media (3D): ceramics, metalwork and glass
Ineligible media: giclee reproductions; photography; digital art.
Eligible artists: botanical illustrator, fine art printmaker, sculptor, ceramic artist, glass artist and jeweller
Size: Maximum dimension is 120cm on the longest side.
Content Criteria: Wholly original artwork with strong "wall appeal" which must have predominantly botanical content which is accurately represented.
For Sale: all artwork must be for sale.

You can view my photos of previous Society of Botanical Art Exhibitions on this page

Submissions of work are invited from visual artists working in any two or three-dimensional artwork except for photography, digital artwork or giclee printing (or similar).

View of part of the 2019 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries

You need to consult the Entry Requirements and the timeline for entries. (Comments in italics inside brackets are my additions!)

Submission is by online entry only. You need to read the Entry requirements first.

Timeline

Deadline for Entries: 29 February 2020 Midnight
Notification of selection decision: 17 March 2020 by artist logging in to website
Delivery of artwork: 18 April 2020 from 10am to 5pm (to Carlton House Terrace in London)
Collection of unsold artwork: Thursday, 11 June 2020 from 11am to 5pm

Selection

All artwork is work is pre-selected based on a voting system
8 people on the selection panel voting independently of one another
No correspondence will be entered into in relation to feedback and the selection process decisions are final.

In essence the pre-selected artworks are those which achieved the highest number of votes from the panel members, who vote independently of one another and who cannot see the scores of the other panel members.

All pre-selected works are ALSO subject to physical selection on hand in day.
Work may be rejected at physical selection stage (after delivery) due to the quality of the work, presentation or if the work does not represent or match the digital image.

How to enter

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Francis Bauer: the first botanical illustrator at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

11/12/2019

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Today is the anniversary of the death of Francis (Franz) Bauer FRS FLS at the age of 82, on 11th December 1840.

Francis Bauer was born an Austrian. He was born in in Feldsberg in Lower Austria (now Valtice in the Czech Republic) on 14 March 1758. However he spent 50 years at Kew Gardens - illustrating plants.

He visited London in 1788 when he was 30 and met Sir Joseph Banks who had a passion for botany and was extremely pleased to meet Bauer - probably at his home at 32 Soho Square. He has by this time realised that finding a competent botanical painter was far more difficult than finding an engraver.

In 1789, Bank appointed Bauer as a natural history illustrator with an annual annuity for life of £300. Bauer subsequently settled permanently in Kew and became the first resident plant illustrator at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

His title was the 'Botanick Painter to His Majesty' for his work at Kew Gardens. A subsequent complication was that his paintings were owned by the crown which gave them to the British Museum! They're now in the Natural History Museum - with just one orchid painting at Kew! However the Natural History Museum has an excellent website where you can see many of them.

Thumbnails of works by Francis Bauer in the Natural History Museum

He is very well known for

his use of the microscope to study and make meticulous and very impressive studies of dissections and pollen grains. He observed nuclei in plant cells in 1802 and began to study pollen diversity
painting a number of illustrations of plants of the genus Strelitzia from South Africa between 1818 - 1820
his studies of orchids while working with John Lindley. He starts to publish Illustrations of Orchidaceous Plants in 1830.
his painted record of "Drawings of Plants Cultivated in the Royal Garden at Kew" (1790-1820) - which is now kept in four different institutions but with very little at Kew!

If you want to see very good reproductions of his paintings, I highly recommend The Bauers Joseph, Franz & Ferdinand: An Illustrated Biography by Hans Walter Lack (see end) which has excellent and large reproductions of his work in what is a very large, comprehensive and heavy book! I got my copy from the Bodleian bookshop when I went to see the exhibit of Ferdinand Bauer's colour scheme.

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