|
Two important dates in May for scientific botanical illustrators:
What is the Margaret Flockton Award?
The Margaret Flockton Award - organised annually by the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney - commemorates the contribution Margaret Flockton (1861-1953) made to Australian scientific botanical illustration.
Every year, illustrators from around the world submit scientifically accurate drawings that accompany the published taxonomic description of a plant, clearly highlighting all of the distinctive features of the species. Original taxonomic illustrations are highly detailed black and white drawings primarily undertaken in pen and ink, pencil or digitally rendered.
You can read more about past winners on my dedicated page The Margaret Flockton Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Illustration
Who can enter the Margaret Flockton Award?
Entries are welcomed from all those who generate scientific illustrations of plants.
All previous winners of the Margaret Flockton Award are eligible to enter, EXCLUDING the 2020, 2021 AND 2022 first prize winning artists. Typically, the people who submit illustrations for this award - and win awards are professional botanical illustrators / people who produce scientific botanical illustrations for botanical gardens and botanists on a regular basis. However they' are NOT the only people who enter. Enthusiastic botanical illustrators ALSO make up at least half the entries
What can you enter?
The page relating to the Award includes a Guide to Scientific Botanical Illustrations - which I recommend you read before processing any further.
0 Comments
Last year, the Margaret Flockton Award had the most entries ever for this prestigious award for contemporary scientific botanical illustration.
This year, the organisers are expecting a repeat - and lots and lots of entries. So you need to make sure you enter your very best work! 46 artists from 21 countries submitted works in a time before the world paused. Who can enter the Margaret Flockton Award?
​Entries are welcomed from all those who generate scientific illustrations of plants.
All previous winners of the Margaret Flockton Award are eligible to enter, excluding the 2018, 2019 and 2020 first prize winning artists. Typically, the people who submit illustrations for this award - and win awards - are professional botanical illustrators / people who produce scientific botanical illustrations for botanical gardens and botanists on a regular basis. However they' are NOT the only people who enter. Enthusiastic botanical illustrators make up at least half the entries and this competition is NOT limited to those who generate income producing scientific botanical illustrations - and scientific illustration entries from a wider group are always welcomed. 
Some of the illustrations from the Margaret Flockton Award 2020 - Flickr Gallery - click the pic to see more
What can you submit?
​The page relating to the Award includes a Guide to Scientific Botanical Illustrations - which I recommend you read before processing any further.
​
How to submit an entry
ALL the specific details regarding submission of artwork and paperwork can be found at https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/Science/Botanical-Illustration/The-Margaret-Flockton-Award - scroll down to ‘Entry Requirements’.
High resolution for judging and exhibiting:
Note: Those who have already submitted images need to note that these will be processed along with all of the other entries after the deadline of March 12. Judging
All entries will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
Margaret Flockton Award 2021 Exhibition
NEW Venue: The Calyx, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney
​Exhibition Dates: Monday 7 June - 20 June 2021 Admission: Free The exhibition will also be seen - on dates to be advised - at two additional venues within the Royal Botanic Gardens i.e.
For all those who cannot get to Australia, the entries will also be available to view online in the Margaret Flockton Flickr Gallery which will be published on Friday 11 June, 2021
Today I'm sharing the 20 most popular pages on Botanical Art and Artists (excluding specific artists) over 2018-19.
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:
 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] The Australasian exhibit within Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art is the first one you come to as you go through the double doors from the reception area of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. into Gallery 1. It covers contemporary botanical art by both Australian and New Zealand artists past and present. You can read more about the artists in my earlier blog post Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists Below you can see photos of the paintings in the exhibition - with names of the plants, credits for the artists and explanations of and/or any stories I know about the plants and/or artists! Australia and New Zealand have strong artists traditions with flourishing art and conservation societies. We had a botanical exhibition here... of a Florilegium of contemporary plant portraits demo Sydney's three botanical gardens, as well as two smaller 'Down Under' shows with paintings by Australian and New Zealand.  Paintings by Paul Jones, Susannah Blaxill, Annie Hughes and Julie Nettleton The first paintings you see on your left as you walk through the door contain some stunners.
 Paintings by Bronwyn van de Graaff , Celia Rosser and Beverly Allen. The next three paintings speak Australia to me.
The new exhibition Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens is very definitely a LANDMARK exhibition of contemporary botanical art - and one woman's dedication and commitment. It's significant in size and scope and is very impressive to the point of being quite overwhelming. I'm very happy to highly recommend it to all those interested in botanical art and/or watercolour painting and/or plants and nature in general.  The current exterior of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art I think it's the first time in the 11 year history of the gallery that the entire gallery has been given over to paintings from The Shirley Sherwood Collection. Normally exhibitions on a theme have been a mix of artwork (and/or other items) from the Kew Collection and the Shirley Sherwood Collection. However, this exhibition is rather different. It celebrates
As such this exhibition has a much more personal feel. It's also organised by geographical area - in terms of where the artists live rather than where the plant comes from - with notes from Dr Sherwood about how she met artists in the different countries - which provides insight into how the collection developed over time. (Note: It struck me that it would be interesting to see another exhibition - with artwork organised by plant family. I don't think we've had one since The Art of Plant Evolution). I've never ever seen so many artworks in the galleries - and one senses from the number of artworks in the exhibition that it's been very difficult to prune the list of artworks that Dr Sherwood wanted to include in the exhibition! The net effect is that the exhibition is quite overwhelming - meaning it takes quite a long time to get round and do it justice!  Gallery 1: Australasia - Paintings by Paul Jones, Susannah Blaxill, Annie Hughes and Julie Nettleton This is only an overview. As I was walking around I very quickly decided that it would be absolutely impossible to do it justice in one blog post/review. Over lunch at the Pavilion Restaurant I tried to work out what to do. I've decided to repeat what I did with the lists of the artists whose work is on display - and do each gallery and geographical area in turn.
As a minimum (i.e. there may be more!), I will review each gallery exhibition in turn - one country or continent each week. I'm not quite sure of the order yet - maybe the one I followed as I viewed the exhibition late last week. For the record:
Find out about the Australasian artists - from Australia and New Zealand - whose artwork is now on display in Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art, the new exhibition at Kew Gardens celebrating 30 years of collecting 1,000+ artworks from all over the world for the Shirley Sherwood Collection of Contemporary Botanical Art. Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art is now open at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens and will be on display until 15th March 2020. Below is one small gem which you can see in the exhibition.  One of the most beautiful small paintings you will ever see. Agapanthus by Susannah Blaxill painted on McEwen vellum for the McEwen exhibition at SSG in 2013 This post "Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists" is the sixth in my series of posts about the artists in the exhibition. Previous posts have travelled around the world
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art |
Botanical Art & Artists
WINTER 2023
AuthorKatherine Tyrrell writes about botanical art and artists and has followers all over the world. You can also find her at linktr.ee BAA Visitors so far....Subscribe to BAA NewsBlog posts are emailed to you when you SUBSCRIBE to "Botanical Art and Artists - News" by Email
Your email subscription to this blog is ONLY activated IF you verify the link you will receive. You can unsubscribe at any time It will NOT be used for anything else and will NEVER be given to anybody else. EVERY DAY FOLLOW News about botanical art + links to new BAA blog posts on Botanical Art and Artists on Facebook
Copyright© Katherine Tyrrell 2015-23
Unauthorised use or duplication of ANY material on this blog without written permission is strictly prohibited. Please also respect the copyright of all artists featured here. What's your news?This blog highlights news - in brief - about botanical art exhibitions around the world.
Use the Contact form to tell me about an exhibition and provide a summary of relevant information. If listing your event I will ask you for relevant images. The Best Botanical Art Instruction BooksTap the pic to check out my recommendations
The Best Books about Botanical Art HistoryTap the pic to check out my recommendations
Workshops, Classes & CoursesFind out about botanical art workshops, classes courses offered by various organisations and artists in:
Read other Botanical Art BlogsREAD Blogs about botanical art and/or by botanical artists & illustrators
Categories
All
BAA News Archives
June 2024
Archive (MaM)This page Botanical Art & Artists on my main blog has an archive of blog posts about past exhibitions of the Society of Botanical Art and Artists
|
RSS Feed
