NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Interview with JR Shepherd (Part 1) + Video

10/5/2017

J.R. Shepherd had an extremely successful solo exhibition called Leafscape at Abbott & Holder in Bloomsbury, London in February 2017.

I asked Jess for an interview because I wanted to try and convey the pathway to a virtually sold out exhibition in central London, how it all happened and everything that led up to it.

This is a very long read - but reading it will hopefully be very helpful for all those who aim to become a professional botanical artist and have a sell-out solo show!

This first post is a summary of the project and some background about Jess.
The next post investigates how the project got off the ground and on to the walls of the gallery and the pages of the catalogue.

A selection of cropped views of the paintings in Leafscape.

I met with Jess (as I know her) after the exhibition closed - but before it was taken down - for an interview (see below)

You can see my video of the exhibition below. It's a slow pan round the two rooms at the top of Abbott and Holder where the exhibition was held. You can see Jess in the video. All wobbles and creaks are down to my handheld videoing technique.

Note the red spots!

The Leafscape project

The reason I asked for the interview is that I was enormously intrigued by the fact that this wasn’t just an exhibition. It was an exhibition with a lot of added extras.

Leafscape was an absolutely HUGE project that Jess managed on her own. She had to:

paint a set of 30+ paintings,
organise a gallery - my first insight into what was going to happen around about a year previously when she told me she’d managed to secure a slot at Abbot and Holder in Museum Street
get all the paintings professionally photographed
arrange for frames
ship them all from Spain and make sure they arrive at the framers in immaculate condition!

Collecting paintings from the framers

arrange for giclee prints to be made of selected paintings - in different sizes - and set up a ‘shop’ website at Inky Leaves Publishing https://www.inkyleavespublishing.com/
arrange a kickstart project to fund the catalogue https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inkyleaves/leafscape-a-limited-edition-art-book-by-inky-leave and
do a CD of the sounds associated with the leaves
do all her own press and publicity.
host an exhibition
assemble book boxes and ship out 500 hardback catalogues to addresses all over the globe

Moreover it was also very successful i.e.

She generated a huge following on Facebook before the exhibition even opened
masses of people attended the Private View - when 19 paintings were sold (including one to an extremely prestigious collector - as in ‘even better than Shirley Sherwood’);
she met her kick starter target for the catalogue, exceeded it, generated very nearly £25k - and enhanced the product offering as a result. The followed up with another Kickstart for a soft back version
Plus she sold almost all her paintings (30+) - priced at £400 for the small ones £1,800 for the medium sized and £3,600 for the large ones.

I was so overwhelmed after hearing about how far some of your had travelled to see the leaves. I had visitors from New Zealand, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, America and Australia. Some of you had driven miles in the storms, all the way from Scotland. It was utterly amazing seeing everyone in such a short space of time and to be able to listen to your stories and talk about botanical art and where it is going. I was visited by the second year students who are studying at the Chelsea School of Botanical Art and gave them a quick talk and then RHS weekend was a real buzz. I was lucky enough to see Rory's daughter, Samantha McEwen and eminent artists such as Rob Kesseler, Martin Sexton and Boyd and Evans and then Rachel de Thame popped with her daughter. Talk about a thrilling experience!
Jessica Shepherd

So who is this person who achieved so much - and how did it all happen?

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An interview with Susannah Blaxill

30/10/2016

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I've come across an interview with Susannah Blaxill, the renowned Australian botanical artist who painted that beetroot! (which I wrote about earlier this year - see Susannah Blaxill's beetroot and a magnifying glass)

I found the interview today as a link on her website. I found it an absolutely fascinating and learned a lot - I hope you do too. You can also find Susannah writing about her art on her website

The interview between Susannah Blaxill and Zoneone Arts covers the following topics

composition and cropping - which she spends a lot of time on before she starts

There is nothing worse than discovering that something is not right when 50%, or even worse 90% of the painting is completed. It is actually a waste of time to rush this early stage.

group compositions
creating wonder using the very simple - such as a beetroot!
developing an international audience
the boundaries between art and science for botanical art
the differences between the UK and Australian markets
her relationship with Kew Gardens and Shirley Sherwood
her approach to teaching

I have found over the years that it is more important to give students information and skills that they can build on rather than attempting to encourage them to produce finished paintings.

how important the life cycle is to her work
thoughts on perfection and imperfection
the pleasure of drawing onion skin

I think that drawing and painting onion skin gives me more pleasure than almost anything else.

her use of charcoal for drawing plants
discovering colour combinations
the best places to buy subjects for art rather than meals
her use of white and black backgrounds
why imperfection can be beautiful

To depict in art the richness of an older face with all the signs of age is so much more interesting than the perfection of the skin of a super model. It is the same with plants – the dying leaves of the pear tree gives the artist so much more scope to explore the ravages of time.

how subject matter sometimes happens accidentally
the benefits of working in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales

NOTE: Zoneone Arts aims to is to provide online interviews that showcase the full range of contemporary arts and crafts happening in Australia and across the world.

You can find out more about other contemporary Australian botanical artists on my website.

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The Chelsea School of Botanical Art - interview with Helen Allen

14/9/2015

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The Chelsea School of Botanical Art is a blog post containing:

my review of the Chelsea School of Botanical Art and its home at the Chelsea Physic Garden following my visit to the school this summer
an overview of the Diploma and short courses offered
an insight into the people teaching the Diploma Couses and short courses
an interview with Helen Allen, the Principal of the School
links to where you can find the Chelsea School of Botanical Art online

You can also find details about the School on this website - on the Diplomas and Certificates page

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