NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

About Nirupa Rao - a contemporary botanical illustrator in India

9/12/2020

Nirupa Rao is a very impressive botanical illustrator based in Bangalore, India. She has generated more press for her activities as a botanical illustrator - and for the importance of plants and tackling 'plant blindness' - than most of her peers around the world.

Her aim is to work toward promoting the cause of science communication, as well as deepening the intersections between art and science. Her work is inspired by regular field visits into the wild, and informed by close collaboration with natural scientists to achieve accuracy.

I highly recommend you watch her TED Talk (see video below) about her work - and how she tackled the illustration of

30 native species of extremely tall rainforest trees of the Western Ghats, in southern India - including the whole tree, its leaves, fruit, flowers and seeds. (Published in Pillars of Life—Magnificent Trees of the Western Ghats (2018). This debut project was undertaken in collaboration with naturalists Divya Mudappa and TR Shankar Raman of the Nature Conservation Foundation.
the fantastical plants of the Western Ghats - through the support of a National Geographic Grant and the Hidden Kingdom Project

A National Geographic Young Explorer, Nirupa received a grant to create her book Hidden Kingdom—Fantastical Plants of the Western Ghats (published in 2019).

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Other activities

In 2019, she participated in a Plant Humanities program at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks Research Centre, and was due to participate in a show at their museum in 2020, which has been postponed due to COVID-19.

She recently collaborated with the Centre for Wildlife Studies in India on Wild Shaale ('Wild School' in Kannada), an environmental and conservation-education program designed for rural school-going children, aimed at nurturing interest and empathy toward India’s wildlife and wild places.

one to watch out for in Forbes India - annual 30 under 30 issue

She has also been

During the COVID-19 lockdown, she

recorded art classes to be televised on the national channel Doordarshan, as part of a program coordinated by the Going to School Foundation, and
conducted a workshop for Science Gallery Bangalore's PHYTOPIA exhibition.

In addition, she has illustrated

the cover of Amitav Ghosh's latest novel, Gun Island, and
re-jacketed four of his older novels for Penguin-Random House.

You can find Nirupa Rao as follows:

website: https://www.nirupa-rao.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/niruparao/

I'm also adding her into the section about Contemporary Botanical Artists and Illustrators in India (on the page about "Botanical Artists in Asia" Page)

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Dare to be Square - available to view online

26/10/2020

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Dare to be Square - the non-juried virtual exhibition of small works of botanical art by members of the American Society of Botanical Artists attending ASBA's virtual conference is now available for all to see online on YouTube (see below)

The Small Works Online Exhibition Premiere slideshow premiere of "Dare to be Square" occurred at the Welcome Reception on Wednesday, October 14th

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UPDATED: Guide to Online Botanical Art Instruction & Courses

29/9/2020

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I've UPDATED my page which provides a Guide to Online Botanical Art Instruction & Courses - to take account of the many developments since the Pandemic started.

It's clear that face to face workshops and classes are going to be very few and far between for some time to come - and I hope all those that are running them have got adequate insurance!

In the meantime there has been a bit of an explosion of botanical art instruction on Zoom and Facebook Live and other platforms where it is possible to have interactive experiences between tutor and student.

I felt very challenged as to how make it simpler for people to understand the different - and proliferating - options on offer. At one point I thought a separate Zoom page was the answer - and then realised that Zoom is a vehicle and platform rather than a category in its own right.

So the page has now been revised, edited and re-categorised as follows.
Plus I've pushed it up the Education Menu as I think it's going to be used rather more often over the next year or so.

Content

This is what you can find on the page - and I make no apologies for providing a lot of explanation about how it all works at the beginning.

SUMMARIES of:

WHAT Online Botanical Art Instruction is
WHO benefits from online instruction
WHERE you can learn about botanical art online
WHO PROVIDES online botanical art instruction
HOW Botanical Art is taught online

+ FAQS CHECKLIST about Online Learning Options
This is based on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) by prospective students (from my Facebook Survey). I recommend students use this as a basis for evaluating alternative options 

OVERVIEW of Online Botanical Art Courses / Videos

This indicates the different types of provision.
While researching "who offers what" in relation to botanical art instruction online, I found that instruction, courses, tutors and fees payable are described in VERY different ways - hence the need to sort and categorise!

DETAIL

I then provide a detailed summary of every provider I know that is providing botanical art instruction online, with:

some detail about the provider
course offering
links to relevant websites
fees or subscriptions payable

Which means that if I've got the categories right, you can compare "like with like".

Who gets on - and stays on - depends on whether I am confident in their abilities and capability in terms of teaching online. That might be the next thing up for review

Keep up to date with Botanical Art Learning Opportunities
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Let me know.....

If you are a teacher
with a developed BOTANICAL ART instruction offering online and you are NOT on the list, then you can contact me.

PLEASE USE MY ADD my ONLINE course (for tutors) FORM - AFTER you have reviewed the information I need from you

If you are a botanical art student
PLEASE COMPLETE the Review of Online Botanical Art Courses form
It would help me greatly if you could:

EITHER Tell me what sort of course you'd ideally like to do online
AND/OR Tell me what you "need to know" before you choose an online course and decide to pay a fee or subscription.
AND/OR Provide feedback about any online courses you have paid for and taken. e.g. Why did you opt for online learning? Who provided the course? Did course delivery meet your expectations - based on information provided? What did you have access to and do? Did you find it helpful? What did you like/not like? Was any aspect disappointing?

PLEASE NOTE COMMENTS ARE NOT PUBLISHED ONLINE - unless you indicate permission to use them for testimonials.

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VIDEO: Lara Call Gastinger and how to keep a perpetual journal of botanical illustrations

3/7/2020

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This is about a recently published video of American botanical illustrator Lara Call Gastinger talking about how her botanical sketching and illustration work is produced.

Plus an opportunity to see more videos of Lara working on her perpetual journal and botanical art

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

ABOUT LARA CALL GASTINGER (GM 2007, 2018)

graduated from the University of Virginia in 1998 with a degree in Biology. She subsequently achieved a Masters in Plant Biology.
she was the Chief Botanical Illustrator for the Flora of Virginia Project - which involved drawing some 1300 illustrations (about 90% of the illustrations in the Flora of Virginia book)
RHS Gold Medal winner in 2007 for a very impressive series on Plants of Virginia - 10 Walks in Virginia which is one of my 'all time favourite' exhibits.
She won a second RHS Gold Medal for Seeing Plants; a year in Virginia" - her suite of 12 sepia watercolour paintings of plants she has found on her walks in different months of the year.
She frequently draws and paints a compendium of plants with a particular connection eg habitat or season.
She keeps a Perpetual Sketchbook Journal

ABOUT THE VIDEO: In the Studio with Lara Call Gastinger

This video - which you can see below - has two parts

The first part is a video record of her work. It covers and focuses on

her seasonal sketchbook journal which has a double page spread for each week of the year - and new sketches are added year by year. This then illustrates the changes in seasonality across the year and from year to year
how the dating system works - and how she adds sketches and observations every week
her art materials and supplies for creating entries in the perpetual journal -
- her sketchbooks,
- micron pens - in black or sepia. She prefers 003
- her paints and palettes and containers and brushes,
- a magnifying lens to help you see plant features
- a field guide to help identify plants
her own more developed artwork - created using watercolour paints
the benefits of keeping a perpetual journal
- become more skilled at observation
- improve your drawing skills and techniques
- note the changes in plants due to changes in season and the changes in climate
- use your perpetual journal as a resource to develop your own botanical art and illustrations (and win an RHS Gold Medal!)

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

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ABBA: Beginner's Botany for Botanical Art

17/6/2020

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The Association of British Artists is developing a resource about Beginner's Botany for Botanical Art. This post highlights what is available.

It's part of a new series of articles and videos associated with promoting learning amongst those new to botanical art.

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

Elaine Allison, the new President, has produced two excellent videos which started off as a live streaming event - plus two blog posts. The focus of both is on The three B's.... Beginner - Botany-Botanical Art

You can find the videos on the BRAND NEW ABBA Channel called - ABBA for All. It's worth subscribing to this with your Google account if you want to follow what they produce.

I think it's an excellent idea. In my opinion, it's also something that more botanical art societies should do - although in order to emulate what ABBA is doing it does take

knowledge of both botany and botanical art
plus experience and expertise in both teaching and presenting on video.

Let's hope that there are some more botanical art societies out there prepared to develop similar resources.

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.

The FIRST module focuses on simple flowers and provides a short introduction to basic descriptive botany

this is the blog post
this is the video - The 3 B's Episode 1- Simple Flowers (24 minutes) - which you also watch below. However you'll enjoy the big screen version on YouTube more.

Using a common native plant, the Geranium, the module considers

The botanical knowledge needed to produce an accurate botanical illustration
What you need to know about your plant specimen before you start drawing
Equipment that might be useful when studying the morphology of your plant
Examination of a single plant in terms of:
- scientific name
- environment in which it is found
- the genus of Geranium
- a diagram of the important parts of the plant
- an exploded diagram of the Inflorescence - with an analysis of what is shown

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.

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NEW: Shirley Sherwood video profiles the paintings in her botanical art collection

5/5/2020

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Yesterday I was really pleased to see that Shirley Sherwood has started a NEW project to talk about the botanical paintings in her collection - on video!

You can find the video on her Facebook Page The Shirley Sherwood Collection.

Below is the very first video where Shirley is talking about the Chinese Elm Bonsai painted by Jeannetta Van Raalte. (The link is to the page about the painting on the new website for the Shirley Sherwood Collection and this is the link to the page profiling Jeanetta Van Raalte)

It's just like being with her in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew when she is doing one of her tours about the new exhibition and is talking about individual paintings. What's great is that she combines:

appreciation and knowledge about the plant
stories about the individual painting and/or plant
explanations about why she particularly likes the painting

Here's how it all came about.

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

This is a wonderful opportunity to hear a VERY knowledgeable botanical art collector talk about her botanical paintings and what made them collectable! You may learn a lot!

In order to view the videos you should:
EITHER

BOOKMARK The Shirley Sherwood Collection Facebook page - which is a public page and you can see whether or not you are a member of Facebook
Like and follow the page if you are a member of Facebook.
Leave a comment - The way Facebook works is that liking/following does not seem to be enough to generate am alert in your new feed. However if you check in every day AND LEAVE A COMMENT, this should then mean that you'll get alerted when a new video appears! :)

Take a look at the Facebook Page every so often - and have a BOTANICAL ART BINGE FEST of videos about the paintings! This too is a good way to consume right now! :)

Indue course - check out my Archive Page about the Shirley Sherwood Exhibitions. I'll be creating something to:
- EITHER link to where the video links are listed on the Collection website - each one is apparently going on the page with the painting
- OR list the artists and paintings on my website and provide a link to the Collection website. BUT I'll probably wait a while to see what materialises as the project gets underway

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Lockdown Projects

If you too have a Lockdown Botanical Art Project which you think other people will be interested in do - and would like to share - please get in touch and tell me about it.
Don't forget to send me images and/or a link to where I can read about it and/or an explanation as to why other botanical artists might be interested.

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Kew Video: What is Botanical Art?

25/4/2019

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The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew have published a new video about 'What is Botanical Art'.

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.

It features somebody I know well - Lucy T. Smith - who is one of the botanical illustrators who work at Kew. She produces assignments for the botanists and for publication in Curtis Botanical Magazine and other botanical publications - as well as teaching students of botanical illustration.

Also involved is Dr Maria Vorontsova FLS who explains why botanical illustration is still superior to photography in terms of recording what's important and helping scientists differentiate between plants - and why she finds Lucy's illustrations of her plants so valuable.

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

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for those needing a two minute introduction to precisely why botanical illustration is needed and how it is produced.

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