Botanical Art: "Ask an Expert" events at Kew

Kew Gardens has three botanical art surgeries set up over the Autumn and Winter for budding botanical artists to:

• view how a professional botanical artist works - and see examples of their completed work
• ask technical questions about aspects of botanical art and illustration - and 
  
• receive practical tips and advice about developing their own work.

Below are

• the dates/times of the three drop-in sessions in October (starting next Sunday), December and February  
• profiles of the three artists who will be hosting the sessions.

The events are free i.e. included with the price of admission to the Gardens.

Sunday 14th October, drop in session 11am - 3pm 

Masumi Yamanaka GM (2010) 
​Masumi was in Nara, Japan but has lived in the UK since 1987. She studied botanical art with Pandora Sellers.

She has been a freelance botanical artist based at the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew since 2007In 2010, she won an RHS Gold Medal for her illustrations of Aesculus indica 'Sydney Pearce'.   She has exhibited at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew as follows:

• ‘Trees’ - Winter 2009,
• ‘Bulbmania’- Summer 2010
• ‘Kew Artists’- Spring 2011. 
• In 2015, her exhibition of 'Kew's Heritage Trees' was held in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. It portrayed the oldest and iconic trees in the garden and the paintings now form part of Kew's permanent collection.
• In 2016 she co-ordinated and organised the Flora Japonica exhibition (2015) at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery and was one of the authors (with Martin Rix) of the book about Flora Japonica​

Masumi Yamanaka with one of the paintings she did for her exhibition of Kew's Heritage Trees at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery

Sunday 9th December, drop-in session 11am - 3pm

​​Lucy T Smith GM was born in Sydney but now lives and works in London. ​She works in pen and ink and watercolour. 

​Lucy has been worked as a botanical illustrator for the Palms of New Guinea project based at Kew for very many years. She also illustrates new species for Kew and is documenting a number of the waterlilies growing at Kew - including the world's largest and smallest. As well as freelancing as a botanical artist for Kew, Lucy also produces paintings for private commissions and exhibitions and teaches botanical illustration. She leads the Kew Certificate in Botanical Illustration and runs short courses in botanical illustration for Kew Gardens and Chelsea Physic Gardens

Lucy has also received a number of prestigious awards

• She was won two RHS Gold Medals
• In 2004, she was awarded the Jill Smythies Award for excellence in Scientific Illustration from the Linnean Society of London. 
• In 2014 and again in 2017, She won the Margaret Flockton Award for Scientific Illustration  - against professional botanical illustrators from all over the world. 

On the Kew website there are two articles about her work - 

• Meet award-winning botanical illustrator Lucy Smith & discover her line drawings and 
• ​Gallery talk with botanical artist Lucy T Smith​

Lucy T Smith with some of her own botanical illustrations in pen and ink - in the Library at Kew Gardens (April 2018)

Sunday 17th Feb 2019, drop-in session 11am - 3pm

Deborah Lambkin GM (1999) has been the official 'Orchid Artist' to the Royal Horticultural Society Orchid Committee since 2005. In 1999 she was awarded an RHS Gold Medal for her collection of eight paintings of Nerines in 1999. To date she has contributed more than 400 orchid paintings to the Royal Horticultural Society's Orchid Painting Collection. She has also exhibited at the World Orchid Conference Botanical Art Exhibition 2014 and published in Curtis Botanical Magazine

Deborah was born in Ireland and lives in London. She trained at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin and is a Member of the Irish Society of Botanical Artists and ​the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society. . She also has work in the collection of the National Botanical Gardens. Dublin.

In 2014 she joined RHS Picture Advisory Panel which includes judging at the RHS Botanical Art shows.

Four orchid paintings by Deborah Lambkin at the RHS Spring Show 2016