I last saw Lara Call Gastinger with her Gold Medal winning exhibit of plants across the months at the RHS Botanical Art Show in 2018

Pay attention, be astonished and tell about it.
a quotation which has influenced Lara

A still frame from the ABBA video "Three B's Episode 2 - Complex Flowers"

Episode 1: Simple Flowers

There is something more important than knowing what parts of the plant are called and that is what does it really look like. This requires detailed anatomical observation. Where possible, it is really useful to see the plant growing in the wild. Get to know the habitat, location with respect to other plants and if it is the same species, how the form can change depending on where it grows.

Episode 2: Complex Flowers

Understanding how the flower is put together is the first step in producing a great piece of artwork that is botanically accurate. 

Shirley Sherwood has been in lockdown in her Oxfordshire home for 6 weeks so the family have started a project to keep her busy ?
We're going to video her telling stories about all 1,020 paintings in the Shirley Sherwood Collection so it's going to take quite a while! The stories will be posted to this page, one day at a time, and will be going on the Shirley Sherwood Collection website alongside the description of each painting.

What you need to do to see the videos
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Lockdown Projects
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Botanical art plays an important role in Kew’s scientific work. Find out how Kew’s botanical artists reconstruct specimens, and how their drawings help our botanists study plants.

Botanical illustrations aren't just art. They communicate precisely what's needed for the taxonomic science.
Maria Vorontsova, Research Leader

Lucy T Smith working on a botanical illustration at Kew

Paintings by Margaret Mee at the the "Brazil: a powerhouse of plants: Margaret Mee, pioneering artist and her legacy" Exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery (20 February 2016 to 29 August 2016)

About Margaret Mee
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About Margaret Mee is my page about this remarkable and very petite woman, who was a famous and important botanical artist, who specialised in painting the flora of the Amazon Forest. ​ an ardent conservationist who highlighted the way in which the forest was being destroyed; and a botanical painter who inspired a number of botanical artists around the world - notably a number of Brazilian botanical artists.

In Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forest from Amazon UK

Her legacy includes  images from her 15 expeditions into the Amazon Rainforest nine new plants - previously unknown to botanical record 400 folios of gouache illustrations, 40 sketchbooks and 15 diaries - many now archived at Kew Gardens her diaries and three books about her work and her paintings a heightened awareness of the importance of conservation of habitat in the Amazon rainforest. inspiration for a number of Brazilian artists - notably the Demonte family, Marlena Baretto, Patricia Villela and Alvaro Nunes The Margaret Mee Amazon Trust (closed 1996) followed by a Fellowship Programme which enables Brazilian artists to train at Kew Gardens 3,000 dancers paraded to a Margaret Mee theme at the Rio Carnival in 1994!

Videos and Slideshows of her work

Catalogue cover: Expomundial Brasil

Here's our e-book finally completed.
We could not allow such an important event to be just a good memory. So we decided to take another step and face another challenge. It seemed simple, but it was months of work and patience of luiz berri, adjustments, wait, doubts and a lot of message exchange, e-mail, watsapp and everything else that could help get the material and information we needed.
But now we have here an important record not only of a remarkable and special moment that was the Brazil, but an overview of the current wealth of botanical illustration in Brazil. Thank you all for participation and trust.
Enjoy to inspire even more

This video of New Zealand's 'Ngai Tipu Taketake - Indigenous Flora' exhibition showcases our diverse and unique flora as seen by the best of New Zealand's botanical artists.