NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

TOP TIPS from RHS Gold Medal Winners 2018

14/8/2018

Today I have some of the Tips I received from my interviews with the RHS Gold Medal Winners at last month's RHS Botanical Art Show.

AND

Later this week you will also have tips from the RHS Gold Medal Winners in 2017 too! This is because although I drafted most of it last year for some reason I didn't finish the post and publish it!

This is a LONG POST with lots of content - so you might want to get a hot drink and a notebook before you start to read!

It's been my habit, for some years, to ask each of the Gold Medal Winners who speaks reasonable English to tell me what would be the three tips they'd like to pass on to people aspiring to exhibit at the RHS Botanical Art Show. Some include ones I've heard before - but good tips are always worth repeating.

I have however omitted

tips relating to painting and art materials as these tend to become repetitive and have been covered in previous tips posts (see end for reference)
tips related to the actual transport of material and how to get your exhibit to stick to the display boards - see my two previous posts last month (listed at the end).

TIP: Focus on what you are passionate about

AGM Dryopteris: species and cultivars of Dryopteris ferns with an Award of Garden Merit - Laura Silburn GM (2013, 2014)

Recommended by Laura Silburn and various artists. More than one artist told me this - in various ways. Variations include:

Be yourself
Know your subject really well
Love your subject
Choose something that inspires you

It is so much easier to complete a major project - such as a portfolio for an RHS Botanical Art Show if you are in love with your subject matter.

TIP: Being a grower helps a lot!

Simon Williams - Nepenthes

Recommended by Simon Williams Nepenthes 
Simon Williams told me he has been growing carniverous plants since he was 16 - and loves them. He's invested in heated greenhouses. The advantages of being a grower are that you get to see your plants through a complete life cycle and can watch them through every season.

TIP: Keep a sketchbook

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REVIEW: Botanical Painting by Margaret Stevens & the SBA

9/8/2018

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sThis is the third of my three book reviews this week. It contains:

my book review of "Botanical Painting"
Three Books and Three Reviews: A Conclusion
a new webpage about 'NEW books about botanical art instruction'

Botanical Painting is the latest in the series of books written by Margaret Stevens, past president of the Society of Botanical Artists.

When The Art of Botanical Painting by Margaret Stevens (with the SBA) was published in 2004 it became the standard text for the Distance Learning Diploma Course pioneered by the Society of Botanical Artists - and sold a LOT of copies - and not just to DLDC students!

I initially thought that Botanical Painting by Margaret Stevens (with the SBA) - published by Batsford on 2 August 2018 - was going to be a revamped and revised edition of the first book. That's because:

it is now an 'old' book. While still good it was certainly due for an overhaul to reflect the changes in botanical painting in the last 14 years - plus the competition from a lot of other books on the same topic which have been published in the last decade or more.
there have been times when it has been out of print and impossible to get hold of a copy - although the situation has eased of late with a new paperback publisher.
the publisher's description for the new book (see below) led me to believe it would not just be an appendix to the first book.

In this new book the Society of Botanical Artists provides a comprehensive guide to the different styles and methods of botanical painting, harvesting the talent of both Members and Distance Learning Diploma Course students around the world, past and present. Botanical Painting features techniques and materials for all levels and demonstrates how these skills can be used to develop your own expertise

However, I regret to say that, in my view, this book does NOT replace 'The Art of Botanical Painting' which in my opinion remains the better book for instruction.

If limited funds mean you have to choose between the two, I'd recommend you buy the first book rather than the latest publication. It'll also cost you less!

Let me explain why...

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The favourite art supplies of botanical artists

5/11/2017

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I've created a new section on my website Botanical Art and Artists for information about and recommendations of Art Materials used by Botanical Artists and Illustrators. The aim is to

share - and pass forward - what we know to help people produce the very best botanical art.
identify alternatives for materials which fall short of the performance and quality people want and need.

Many of you will be aware that I've been steadily compiling tips, techniques and recommendations about the use of art media, materials and equipment for botanical art and illustration. If not, take a look for example at:

Paper and supports
Vellum

Some of the new pages in the NEW Section about Art Materials used by botanical artists

I've got a number of NEW PAGES to develop in this section.

One of the ones I'd like to develop first is a new page about Favourite Art Materials - the ones people openly recommend. The new page will cover both favourite art supplies and favoured art materials suppliers - to the extend that these have been independently identified by botanical artists and illustrators on their own sites.

What I'm now trying to do is identify all those webpages and/or blog posts created by reputable botanical artists that provide information about

their recommended art supplies for botanical art.
art suppliers that they recommend.

I've highlighted some examples below.

Highlight favourite art supplies.

For example a post which provides a compendium of recommendations is

Heidi Venamore's Favourite supplies for painting;
Heeyoung Kim's favorite art supplies for botanical art does the same thing - and covers pencils, erasers, watercolour paint and papers etc.

Others highlight one specific type of art material, the options available and what they've noticed about them. This includes products where you really like them right up until the point at which they need to be misplaced (often relating to comments on brushes)

e.g. see Dianne Sutherland's Which Brush? Spotters and Miniatures
and her equally helpful blog post Which pencil?

Five miniature brushes - pressed against the paper to illustrate the differences (Left to right: Winsor & Newton Series 7 miniature, Rosemary & Co spotter, David Jackson spotter, Raphael 8048 and Pro Arte series 107) - courtesy of Dianne Sutherland Ball

While others provide information on the tests they've done on different options eg for paper

e.g. Earlier this year Lizzie Harper used both blog posts and videos to demonstrate her experiences of different watercolour papers - see Botanical Illustration: Comparing Hot Press Watercolour Papers and Botanical Illustration: Comparing Hot Press Watercolour Papers (part 2)
Or one particular art medium that they use

Nominate favoured suppliers.

Others will highlight the art supplier they favour as being reliable and stocking good quality products.

If you have a recommendation

If you:

recommend art materials on your website or blog (i.e. anywhere the page has a URL)
have explored alternatives for specific types of media or equipment
would like to endorse the people you use for art supplies

please leave a comment - or contact me

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Tradescant's Orchard - images of the exhibition at the Garden Museum

4/9/2017

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This review of the exhibition - which includes images of the paintings and some of the artists - should have been written a very long time ago. The reason why this hasn't happened is explained at the end.

I've written two previous posts about Tradescant's Orchard Exhibition at the Garden Museum exhibition which are:

Tradescant's Orchard: A Celebration of Botanical Art (12 April 2017) - introducing the exhibition and listing the participating artists (with links to their websites)
Tradescant's Orchard - a Video of the exhibition (13 June 2017) posted after the opening and just prior to the Private View.

Below are photos of the exhibition - and of some of the artists with their paintings at the Private View - held on the evening of 13th June 2017 - organised as follows

some interior views of the Garden Museum - so you can see where the exhibition is located. It's the same space as that used by the Garden Museum for the exhibition of the Highgrove Florilegium back in 2009.
The Tradescant's Orchard volume - on loan from the Bodelian Museum
The Exhibition - including a slideshow of images of the paintings
The Artists - not all of them but a goodly number!
The exhibition organisers and sponsors; and finally
the explanation for the delay - which is maybe not what anybody was expecting. I know I wasn't!

Tradescant's Orchard exhibition - inside the newly revamped Garden Museum

Private View Speeches - Lucinda Grant and Lesley Ann Sandbach organisers of the exhibition explain how it all came together.

The Tradescant's Orchard

The exhibition includes a display of ‘The Tradescants’ Orchard’, a seventeenth-century volume of sixty-six watercolours (usually to be found in the Bodleian Museum in Oxford) depicting fruit varieties that John Tradescant and his son might have grown in their market garden at Lambeth.

The Tradescant's Orchard - a volume of watercolours lent by the Bodleian Museum

The 17th Century watercolours are from the collection of Elias Ashmole, whose collection founded the Ashmolean Museum, and are considered one of the Bodleian Library’s greatest treasures. The Orchard is a practical document that records the size, colour and texture of fruit with their ripening dates. This is the first time they have been lent to an exhibition outside Oxford, and the Museum are displaying them in a brand new exhibition space.

You can read more about the Tradescants (father and son) on:

The exhibition

The paintings are organised in groups of similar orchard fruit - and it was very interesting to see what was chosen. In part I guess because I was interested to see what fruits were available to John Tradescant back in the days when he was the royal gardener and was growing fruit trees in Lambeth.

I was actually a little bit surprised at some of the duplication. I guess I was thinking the project would start with a list of plants based on the book and then people would pick what they wanted to do - with only one person doing one type of plant. However that's my only negative as the exhibition reveals a high standard of botanical art - with some exceptional pieces.

I've set up the images of the paintings as a SLIDESHOW (below) because they're wider than usual. It will play automatically if you put your cursor over the image andclick the "Play" button top left. If you want to look at your own pace or retrace and look at the last one for longer, use the arrows which are middle of the image - on the right and left.

I've included some notes about each photo - but will try and come back and add in more detail as to who painted what! You can see a full list of the artists in my post dated 12 April - listed at the beginning.

Impressed? You should be - it's a splendid exhibition and has set a high standard for what we can expect to see in the future.

You have a month left to see it. The exhibition closes on 4th October 2017.

I'm expecting great things from this space as a future place where botanical art can be exhibited in London. Not that every exhibition will be about botanical art - but I'm looking forward to the next one......

The artists

This is an international exhibition - the artists live in the UK and around the world. A number of the artists had travelled long distances to get to the preview. Indeed some had arrived having just got off a plane!

Here are just some of the artists with their paintings. I hope I've got all the names right! I'm afraid the low light levels meant that the names of the plants and descriptions on the labels were very difficult to pick up. (Feel free to tell me what the plant is if you're featured in this post.)

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British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection - a review and a timeline

24/8/2017

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The "British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection" exhibition at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens finishes on 17th September 2017. If you haven't been to see it yet I strongly recommend you do so as it includes some iconic work by British Botanical Artists.

[NOTE: Since writing this post I've had the opportunity to review it with Shirley Sherwood personally and it has now been

UPDATED for her comments
PLUS the number of artworks by each artist in the collection is now indicated after their name (the first time they are mentioned) if there is more than one]

L to R: 3 paintings by Rory McEwen; 6 paintings by Coral Guest and 3 paintings by Pandora Sellars

I've now seen the exhibition four times and it might seem a bit odd to be doing a review so late in the day, except I've already written about it in:

British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection - an exhibition at Kew
British Botanical Artists - photographed with their paintings - from the evening of the Private View back in March; and
List of artists exhibited in 'British Artists in Shirley Sherwood Collection' - this includes all the artists plus links to their websites and a note of their artwork in the exhibition

Since I wrote these, the Gallery has also included British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection.pdf (PDF)on the website - which I urge everybody to download as this is the ONLY formal record of this exhibition (there is no catalogue). It also includes thumbnails of all the paintings in the exhibition.

It has not been possible to hang more than a small proportion of ‘my’ British artists here as I now have 330 works by 86 painters and so I have had to be fiercely selective.

On my last visit I took my time and went round very slowly, looking at the artwork closely. I found that I began to detect themes within the collection which I had missed earlier.

In a way it's a story of a collection, a collector and the development of botanical art in the UK over more than a quarter of a century of collecting.

Hence this post is going to be something of a timeline or retrospective of the collection which started in 1990. It's by no means the story of the whole collection of British artists as this now includes 330 works by 86 painters.

There are three botanical artists in the exhibition who have an artwork on display which was acquired or commissioned in every decade to date. They are Brigid Edwards, Coral Guest and Rory McEwen - who are all members of the small group of what Dr Sherwood refers to as her 'core artists'.

This post is interspersed with comments from Dr Sherwood and listings of the artists whose work is featured in each decade.

In relation to dates:

the date before the name is the date it was acquired by Dr Sherwood.
The date after the name is the date it was completed.

In relation to the paintings:

UPDATE: the number of paintings in bold after the name is the total number held in the collection [Note this is an update since this post was first published]
The title of a painting in the exhibition is listed in the decade to which it relates (hence an artist may be listed in more than one decade)
You can also read more about leading British Botanical Artists in my page dedicated to them on this website.

Where an artist is exhibiting elsewhere in the UK currently or in near future and/or teaching I'm also sharing the information in this post.

All quotations are by Shirley Sherwood (from the pdf record of the exhibition) unless otherwise indicated.

WARNING - THIS IS A VERY LONG POST. I suggest you find a comfy place to sit now and if you like finding out about botanical art and artists then you may be some time reading it!

The First Decade 1990-1999

Five paintings by Pandora Sellars - including the very first painting in the collection on the right

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What to use instead of Fabriano Artistico?

31/1/2017

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I'm getting a lot of enquiries from botanical artists as to what progress has been made with "the Fabriano Artistico story" and the major change in how the paper behaves.
Below you will find

the story so far
my recommendations for how to find a new paper; and
a brief review of an alternative surface - vellum.

Fabriano Artistico and Botanical Art - the story so far

Fabriano Artistico has been much favoured by botanical artists for very many years. For many years it has been a surface which stands up to the demands of those wanting to create very precise paintings of botanical specimens

Then something changed. You may not have read my previous posts on this topic.

"Fabriano Paper - an update" by Katherine Tyrrell (SBA Winter Bulletin)

Plus I did an update for the Society of Botanical Artists Winter Bulletin - an extract from which summarises what has happened since the meeting with Fabriano last summer.

Fabriano have done some trials since the meeting. To date they have been unsuccessful at identifying what needs to be different to produce the old surface. This means no prospect of a change back to the old surface in the near future.
We’ve now agreed to go through the same exercise with St. Cuthberts Mill. They recently produced two new papers as a response to the problem. This Mill only produces fine art paper and has an incentive to produce and/or refine paper to meet the needs of a group of artists with specific requirements.
Fabriano Paper - an update (SBA Winter Bulletin)

Recommendations

My recommendation to people needing a replacement for Fabriano Artistico is as follows.

YOU NEED TO EXPERIMENT!

The reason for this is that the way that YOU personally work makes a BIG difference to whether or not you like a paper.

You should TRY:

different makes of watercolour paper
different weights of paper - they can perform quite differently
BOTH SIDES of the paper. There is no one right side - there's only the side which works for you! :)
testing paper at different times of year - environmental factors can also make a big difference to how watercolour paper behaves (and you should make a note of your environment when testing)
Vellum - it doesn't misbehave!

Remember you don't need to do a full-on botanical artwork to test watercolour paper! You just need to use the botanical painting techniques you commonly use when creating your paintings.

I'm going to create a NEW Page about watercolour paper for botanical artists on the website. This will document what people have been saying about different watercolour papers. However I'm going to need them to also describe how/where they work so this may take a little time...

I'll also be asking artists at the upcoming RHS Botanical Art Show what they're using - particularly those whose work looks really good on paper!

In the meantime...

Vellum

Amongst full time professional botanical artists, I've noticed a very significant move from Fabriano Artistico to vellum. Botanical artists are visiting or contacting William Cowley & Sons a lot!

Vellum is also of course a very traditional surface for botanical painting used by very many famous botanical artists in the past.

I focused on created a new page all about Vellum which has been developed since the Fabriano Artistico "crisis". This includes:

What is vellum and the different types of vellum;
How to paint on vellum including a summary of tips; and
Suppliers of vellum and pumice in the UK and USA

There are two major bonuses to working on vellum:

It does not degrade like paper can do (if not well protected) over time
Colours painted using watercolours read much better on vellum compared to paper. As a result paintings can have more impact when seen across a crowded room - or botanical art exhibition!

and two significant considerations:

vellum is more expensive than paper
vellum usually needs to be mounted to look good - and that requires some expertise. (All Rory McEwen vellum paintings are mounted on boards - as are the new small works on vellum by Fiona Strickland - see below)

"Almost Over" Watercolour on Kelmscott vellum 8.5 x 11.75ins (21.6 x 29.8cm) (artwork size). 13.5 x 16.5 x 1.37ins (34.5 x 42 x 3.5cm) (framed size) Copyright Fiona Strickland

REFERENCE:

Fiona Strickland exhibition at Park Walk Gallery - Fiona now uses Kelmscott vellum for small works - you can see a mounted and framed example above.
Brigid Edwards's exhibition of new botanical paintings on vellum - Brigid has been using vellum for a long time

Left to right: Artichoke, Plane Tree and Parrot Tulips copyright Brigid Edwards

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Brigid Edwards's exhibition of new botanical paintings on vellum

16/12/2016

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I visited the botanical art exhibition of New Works on Vellum by Brigid Edwards at at Thomas Gibson Fine Art Gallery on Wednesday this week. I gather that the gallery has had had rather a lot of visitors to the exhibition. Possibly a few prompted by my previous post? (see New Works on Vellum by Brigid Edwards)

The exhibition closes today so for all those of you who have not had a chance to take a look at her botanical and natural history paintings in watercolour you can get a taster from my photos of what the works looked like framed and hung in the gallery in the slideshow below.

This is the cover of the catalogue - and the cover image is the first work you see as you enter the gallery.

Cover of the catalogue for the Brigid Edwards exhibition at Thomas Gibson Fine Art Gallery in St. James

The exhibition was extremely well hung in terms of theme, shape and colour. Like a good painting I kept noticing an undercurrent of themes of things that interest the artist and more and more repetition of aspects of the paintings which helped to unify the whole.

You can see all her 2016 works on display on Brigid Edwards website - under New Paintings from which you can see that there were:

5 paintings of flowers
7 paintings of fruit or vegetables
2 paintings of a leaf
1 painting of coral
4 paintings of the wings of moths

(I have a note of the prices being charged for those interested).

All works - as the title suggests - are on vellum. Interestingly the vellum looked as if it had been gessoed by hand. Some of it didn't look like Kelmscott at all (I could see brushmarks) and the underlying veination was a little obvious to anybody looking closely - although not at all apparent at a distance. I was left wondering whether she prepared her own vellum with gesso prior to painting.

Gallery view of "New Works on Vellum"

The works as you can see from the gallery shot are a medium size with the subject matter being framed so it's isolated within the frame with a good margin - but not like the works completed by Rory McEwen who was apt to leave his subjects on vellum very isolated on whole sheets.

She works like a miniature artist and uses lots of tiny strokes which are now just a little more obvious than they were in her earlier paintings. I don't think this is the best work of hers that I've seen. There again she is now 76 years old and I'm comparing these paintings to ones done maybe 15-20 years ago when she was at her peak! (She didn't start to produce botanical paintings until she was in her 40s). That said - this is based on using a loupe and staring at them close-up. From a normal viewing distance the works still looks great.

One of the things I've always liked about her art is her ability to provide a new insight into an object you thought you already knew. For me this time the coral was the big surprise.

She continues to focus on structure at a macro and micro level and to display an ability to choose a good subject and develop an appropriate composition which highlights the structural aspects. Plus she also chooses to do subjects that few others would paint - such as the Ridge Gourds, the Chimoya and the Coral.

I learned a few things. For example, that she was able to develop the fine structures in her paintings with the use initially of an electron microscope and latterly a high resolution scanner. (I read that and looked up across the room at the celeriac - and wondered how that worked!). She also used the scanner to work out arrangements of her subject material on a page. (That's the same as using a camera without the distortion introduced when you don't hold the camera dead level and at precisely 90 degrees to the subject!)

There's an article about Brigid Edwards and her art in the January 2017 edition of The Oldie. The author, Ian Dunlop, is the chap who wrote the introduction to the exhibition catalogue. Definitely worth a read!

Her works straddles the world of natural sciences and the world of art. It's based on good science and it comes across as great art

Article in January 2017 edition of The Oldie

Thomas Gibson Fine Art Ltd.

I have to say I've rarely come across a gallery which has such excellent presentation for works with glazing - there were no reflections!

I think the paintings were covered by museum glass as there was no reflections - plus the windows were covered in white blinds so no dazzling sunlight could penetrate and the spot lighting was excellent..

On top of all that it's in the centre of the area of some top quality galleries - between St James and Cork Street and just across the road from the RA at Burlington House. It's in a perfect position for fine art collectors! (the address is 39 St James Street, London Sw1A 1JD.

There's just one teeny, tiny problem - and that's getting in. Security door at street level with no obvious indication of which button to press. Then two more security doors outside the Gallery. Go with the telephone number in your phone!

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