ASBA 22nd Annual International - Awards

The American Society of Botanical Artists have now been announced the Awards for artwork in the 22nd Annual International Exhibition at the Marin Art & Garden Center in California.

BELOW you can click on:

• the title of the artwork - to read the story behind its creation on the ASBA website
• the artist's name - to go to her website - if one exists. (Plus Facebook Page if they have one)

Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum (Watercolor and gouache on paper, 28-1/2 X 20 inches) - copyright Linda Medved Lufkin 2018

Marin Art and Garden Center Best in Show Award ($500)

• Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum 
• Linda Medved Lufkin
  
• Facebook Page: Linda Medved Lufkin Botanical Art

I have to say I was hugely impressed by this painting when I saw it online for the first time and it seems a very worthy winner of Best in Show to me. I always think of this plant as a bit of a drama queen whenever I see it in gardens and Linda has caught that flavour and colour with her dynamic composition and very controlled colour palette. I also really loved her 'bad hair day' analogy about the complexity and structure of the leaves in her back story!  

​Her backstory  provides a wonderful insight into how she approached painting a plant such as the Eryngium alpinum.

In 2018 I was shopping with Marilyn Garber at our flower wholesaler for the subject of the next class I was to teach at the Minnesota School of Botanical Art. It was entitled Enlarging Scale & Format. I was to teach my students to use a gridding system and enlarge a small subject by three times, which would use most of a full sheet of paper. I was looking for a plant that would offer my students enough complexity and detail that they would need to be very diligent in ‘mapping’ out the placement of their lines within each grid space and achieve a complex, but obtainable challenge. When I found the bouquets of Sea Holly, Eryngium alpinum, I knew that I found something that would work beautifully for our purposes. READ MORE 

Linda uses the traditional technique of developing layers of transparent washes, then using a very small brush to develop detail, colour and form using the drybrush technique.  She's been working as an Instructor at The Minnesota School of Botanical Art since 2016. Prior to this she worked for many years creating customised murals for clients.  Linda has previously had work in and was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Portland School of Art, ME. in 1982. She has a strong exhibition record with ASBA in recent years.

• ASBA's 19th and 20th International Annual Exhibitions
  
• won  The Richmond and Lili Bates Award in 2017 and The Helen Gray Garber Award in 2016
• Also was selected for an exhibited in the Botanical Art World Wide: America’s Flora’ and ‘Out of the Woods: Trees in Public Gardens’ exhibitions.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Award for Print or Drawing ($500)

Fascinator Paeonia lactiflora (Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 13.5 x 19 inches) - copyright Patricia Luppino

• Fascinator Paeonia lactiflora (Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 13.5 x 19 inches)
• Patricia Luppino

Born in Brooklyn, New York and a lifelong resident of Long Island. Now retired from a long career as an IT professional. She started studying botanical art in 2005 and earned the SBA Diploma in Botanical Painting with Distinction in 2008. Since then she's exhibited in various juried and group exhibitions of botanical art - including (prior to this exhibition) the 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 20th and 21st ASBA Annual International Botanical Art Exhibitions with the Horticultural Society of New York, the 1st Triennial Botanical Art Exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden. This year Patricia is also exhibiting in the 16th International Exhibition at the Hunt.

Patricia and I were emailing backwards and forwards yesterday about another matter and she never said a word about her award!

ASBA Eleanor Wunderlich Award ($500)

• Physalis Physalis peruviana (Watercolor on paper, 11-5/8 x 8-3/8 inches)
• Svetlana Lanse (Vinnikova)​ (
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/svetlanawatercolor

​
Svetlana Lanse is a professional artist and art teacher living in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from Higher School of Folk Arts (institute)  where she learned about botanical art by copying artwork by Pierre Joseph Redouté and Maria Sibylla Merian. She is currently trying to popularise botanical art in Russia using Instagram (@botanical_watercolor) and has more than 85,000 followers. In May 2018 she was juror of Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition (Russia) with Alexander Viazmensky, Natalia Alatortseva, Yaroslav Bazanova and Darya Fomicheva.

Richmond and Lili Bates Award for Excellence
​in recognition of an Artist by a Fellow Artist ($300)

• Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Samba Dancer' (Watercolor on paper, 15-1/2 x 11-½ inches) 
• Mitsuko Schultz (no website)

​
Mitsuko Schultz moved to Los Angeles from Kyoto, Japan in 1996. Her passion for plants and flowers saw her working at the UCLA Botanical Garden where she began her horticulture studies when then led to her becoming a floral designer in Los Angeles - and then eventually to her taking up botanical art.. Her work has been included in the Hunt's 16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration, Filoli’s Annual Botanical Art Exhibitions (Roth Award recipient in 2018), ASBA Annual Internationals (received an Honorable mention in 2017, catalogue cover in 2018), Out of the Woods, Botanical Art Worldwide America’s Flora and numerous other shows in California since 2011. She is also a member of the Botanical Artist Guild of Southern California.

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Honourable Mentions

This year there are two Honourable Mentions.

• Karen Kluglein has a marvellous bunch of grapes  - Joie de Vivre Vitis vinifera (Watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 inches)
• Tammy McEntee's very lovely coloured pencil drawing is of an Ornamental Gourd Cucurbita pepo (Colored pencil and graphite on paper, 12 x 12 inches)

The Back Stories

You can see the remaining artworks and read about their back stories by clicking the links on this list of artists selected for the exhibition (click the artists tab and then click the link in each artist's name to read the story)

​The exhibition is at The Studio, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Frances Drake Blvd, Ross, CA 94957. It opened last Sunday and continues until 17th November 2019.