NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Autumn 2023: Chinese watercolour of Asian Fruits

3/9/2023

When I change the seasonal banners for my website and Facebook Page, I normally try to pick images for each seasonal banner of flowers or fruits which I'm totally confident are correct for the season. However I've been totally seduced by a wonderful album of Chinese watercolours of Asian fruits - and I have absolutely no idea which ones are correct in which season or even what some of the fruits are - despite three trips to the east (Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) and visiting local markets! Although I think I recognised some....

The main problem is none of the fruits are identified in English and indeed each is identified only by very faint arabic script. However I did recognise the pink pineapple which I regularly see fruiting in the Princess of Wales Glasshouse at Kew.

[Note: feel free to suggest what the fruits are in this image via the comments]

Page 21 of the Album of Chinese Watercolours of Asian Fruits

I found the album:

in the Biodiversity Heritage Library website
it's also on the Internet Archive and
available to view via the Harvard Library Viewer.

I think the source is the Dunbarton Oaks website where it is identified as a rare heritage folio of Album of Chinese watercolors of Asian fruits]. [between 1798 and 1810]. There's absolutely no indication as to who the painter is. Such labels as do exist are written in Arabic script - which makes one wonder why they were identified as Chinese Watercolours.

The Harvard reference page states...

Bill Archer and his wife Mildred, an English art historian who specialized in 18th- and 19th-century art in British India, curator of Prints and Drawings at the India Office Library from 1954 to 1980, viewed this album of watercolors at Dumbarton Oaks around 1958 and determined from their style and coloring that the album was most likely painted by a Chinese artist, probably in Malaysia or Sumatra. Archer dated the manuscript to between 1798 and 1810.

while the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library shelflist card apparently states

"Drawn by Indian artists under English influence: probably done in India but has no relation to Chinese artists - check where Chinese were working at this time in India or possibly in Indo-China. Indian artists started this vogue of drawing. Writing is perhaps Malaysian."

Whoever painted them, the first 12 paintings are absolutely fascinating as they are very elaborate compositions which fill the page. they comprise:

several fruit on each page
sometimes at different stages of their life cycle
sometimes peeled or segmented to reveal their internal structure
surrounded by relevant flowers and foliage

Each of the 12 images are well worth studying in terms of composition and arrangement.

Asian artists who go large.....

1 Comment

SBA's Plantae 2023: Exhibiting Excellence Awards

19/5/2023

0 Comments

The Exhibiting Excellence Awards at the Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition were introduced by SBA Council to highlight

excellent artworks in different media or
excellent artwork in relation to colour or composition.

The recipient receives a very attractive Certificate of Exhibiting Excellence for their work to frame and hang on their studio wall.

Below I provide:

an image of the artwork winning the award
a profile of the artist based on available information online.

(TIP: Always sort out your online presence and profile BEFORE you exhibit at a major exhibition and win a prize!)

I've chosen an image below for the Introduction of the two artworks which got an award for Exhibiting Excellent in Dry Media (Graphite) - hung next to one another.

They demonstrate what is possible.
The one (on the left) is by a recent graduate of the DLDC who is a first time exhibitor this year.
The other (on the right) is by a very experienced and very accomplished long time member who always draws in graphite.
That's the story of this exhibition..... (see Review: Plantae 23 - Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists)

Two Botanical Drawings in Graphite received Exhibiting Excellence Awards - one by a first time exhibitor and one by a long time member

Plantae 2023 Exhibiting Excellence Awards

The EXHIBITING EXCELLENCE at Plantae 2023 cover a variety of differentiating factors:

inspiring use of colour
innovation in composition
depiction of wild flora
contemporary botanical art
use of media:
- dry media (graphite)
- dry media(coloured pencils)
- wet media- watercolour
- wet media - oils
- wet media - ink
- artists chosen media

The numbers after the title of the artwork below refer to the number in the Catalogue for Plantae 2023.

Exhibiting Excellence: Colour & Composition

There were two awards for colour and one for composition.

EXHIBITING EXCELLENCE: Canna Lily (102) by Janice Gazetas

Inspiring Use of Colour
Canna Lily (102) by Janice Gazetas
(watercolour on paper)

Janice Gazetas BSc (hons) PGCE SBA Fellow has always loved drawing and painting. Born in 1951 and brought up in Lincolnshire. She studied Botany and Zoology at University before training to be a teacher. She has worked as a Research Scientist and after having two children, trained as a teacher. got her PGCE and specialising as a science teacher in a Primary School. Like many, she returned to painting only after she retired. She became a Fellow of the SBA in 2019.

I am interested in the complex and unexpected, both in structure and colour.

She has exhibited previously with the Society of Botanical Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, Society of Women Artists in the UK and the Botanical Art Agency Of Korea in Korea.

What I liked about her Canna is that it very much reminded me of those that I enjoy in the tropical Garden at Great Dixter which is a real challenge to walk through once they're full on in midsummer with the leaves twisting and turning.

Her botanical paintings are typically complex, bright and intense. However, I found one of her other paintings in the exhibition - a close cropped view of eucalyptus trees - caught my eye every time I walked past and insisted I looked at it - and yet this was relatively subdued compared to her normal botanical paintings.

0 Comments

RHS Silver Gilt Medals - Botanical Art Show 2022

10/4/2022

1 Comment

This is about the botanical artists and illustrators from all over the world who were awarded an RHS Silver Gilt Medal at the The RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show last Friday.

My last blog post was about the Botanical Art Gold Medallists
My next blog post is about the Botanical Art Silver Medallists

If you'd like to visit the show at the Saatchi gallery, read RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2022 at the end of this post for more information about venue, dates, hours and tickets.

NOTE: Most of the photos and text in this post has been provided to me by the botanical artists exhibiting in the RHS Botanical Art Show. I'd love to expand to fill the gaps - and if I've got any details wrong please do not hesitate to contact me

Some of the exhibits with interesting stories will be highlighted in more depth in subsequent posts.

The hanging format picture provided to RHS by Melinda Edstein for her exhibit "Red flowering, bird pollinated Australian flowers"

RHS Silver Gilt Medals for Botanical Art 2022

I always think the Silver Gilt Medal exhibits are really interesting to study in some depth. These are the exhibits which are within the spectrum of

EITHER just missing out on a Gold Medal;
OR adding something extra which elevated their work beyond Silver.

This is the group for which the oft repeated mantra (at least by me) is particularly relevant.

An exhibit is only as good as the weakest painting.

In other words, errors and weaknesses are what lead an exhibit to lose points in the scoring of the different criteria used for judging the exhibits.

I can see people in this list who, for me, obviously have the capacity to come back and get a Gold Medal. Can you spot them?

These are the RHS Silver Gilt Medallists , listed in alphabetical order by country.

AUSTRALIA

Andrew Carr - Two Western Australia Eucalypts
Melinda Edstein - Red flowering, bird pollinated Australian flowers

ROMANIA

Irina Neacsu - On Transylvania's botanical remedies - Winter Berries

TAIWAN

Annie Chen - Jewels in the Amazon Rainforest

Catherine Day - Species Lilies
Margaret Fitzpatrick - Threats to the Hose Chestnut Tree documented in 2020
Julia Groves - Seeds of Hope
Maureen Hallahan - Plant Lore

Rui Jiang - Violas (Violaceae)

Pamela Taylor - Trees: Form and Structure
Julie Whelan - Passiflora

USA

Susan Tomlinson - From Field to T-Shirt: Diversity in modern elite cotton bolls (see image below)

The botanical artists and illustrators below are listed alphabetically by surname.

Each profile includes something about the exhibit and something about the artist.
Links to their websites (or other social media site) is embedded in their name IF a link is available

Some of the exhibits will be covered in more depth at a later date.

Andrew Carr - Two Western Australia Eucalypts

Two Western Australia Eucalypts by Andrew Carr

1 Comment

VIDEO: Seasons through a Sketchbook (2021) by Dianne Sutherland

23/10/2021

0 Comments

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Dianne Sutherland has published a video (see above) of the sketchbook she has been keeping through the seasons of 2021. It includes her completed Volume 1 (February - Septs,ber 2021) and the start of Volume 2 (mid September to date)

It's an absolute pleasure to view. I love the way she covers her double page spreads with studies of the whole and parts of her plants - with notations and colour samples she's used to make records for future reference.

Nice music by a chap called Gavin Sutherland as well - with Irmi Wolvin.

You can find a listing of the plants and all the Sketchbook Contents at the end of Volume 1 - at 3 minutes 12 seconds - which shows that the sketchbook was started in February and finished in the middle of September - prior to the start of Volume 2. Dianne is now up to week 34!

The Seasons through a Sketchbook is a joint project with Debbie Crawford, a botanical artist who lives in New Jersey.

There's an article about their joint project in the September 202 edition of 'Botanical Artist'.

More about Dianne Sutherland

Portfolio website: Dianne Sutherland Botanical Artist - where you can"
- see more of her artwork - in watercolour, graphite, sketchbooks and as commercial work for an impressive list of clients
- visit her shop
Tuition website: Botanical Art Online with Dianne Sutherland - which provides information about courses, workshops and online options
Blog: http://diannesutherland.blogspot.com - has some long and very informative and helpful posts going back a number of years.

0 Comments

The Highgrove Florilegium on splendid display in Chelsea

23/9/2021

3 Comments

“The Highgrove Florilegium:
Watercolours Depicting Plants Grown in The Garden at Highgrove”

Paintings are organised according to the different parts and rooms within the garden at Highgrove

After visiting the RHS London Botanical Art & Photography Show in Chelsea on Tuesday (of which more later), I walked down to Chelsea Barracks to see what I think might be the first display in London of all the paintings completed for the Highgrove Florilegium (Volumes 1 and 2) since 2009.

“The Highgrove Florilegium: Watercolours Depicting Plants Grown in The Garden at Highgrove” is only on until Sunday 26th September. It's also very easy to access for those visiting the Chelsea Show. The paintings are hung in the former Guards Chapel in the former Chelsea Barracks - now known as the Garrison Chapel - which is now owned by The Prince's Foundation Trust - hence the location of the exhibit.

I cannot recommend this exhibition too much. The quality of the paintings is excellent.
In fact, this is a much better exhibition of contemporary botanical art than the current RHS Botanical Art Show.

The Cottage Garden

To my mind, it's also a much better exhibition than the original one twelve years ago, which was in a very small space in the Garden Museum at Lambeth Palace. (See my original review of the exhibition Exhibition Review: The Highgrove Florilegium at the Garden Museum (14th July 2009)

This time there's much more focus on the paintings and much less on the book - which is nowhere to be seen!

The big bonus of this exhibition is that the space is large and the paintings have been hung according to the different "rooms" of the garden where the subject plants were located. As such, it's a much better representation of the garden at Highgrove - which, of course, is what a florilegium is intended to do.

The paintings also look excellent on the green walls and they benefit from both natural light and additional lighting but both are up high so there's some reflection but not too much.

The Kitchen Garden and The Nursery

The Highgrove Florilegium is the first Royal Florilegium in the UK. It contains botanically accurate watercolour paintings of the plants grown in the garden of Highgrove near Tetbury in Gloucestershire - which has been the country home of the Prince of Wales since 1980.

3 Comments

VIDEO: How to paint like a botanical artist

3/5/2021

2 Comments

Lucy T Smith, one of the botanical artists at Kew Gardens, who both works with the botanists and also provides tuition in botanical illustration, has created a new video.

How to paint like a botanical artist is a simple introduction to the process of botanical painting using watercolour. It provides a step-by-step guide on how to paint the perfect Primula flower.

Find out what equipment you’ll need, how to highlight the important details of your flower, and tips for bringing a botanical painting to life.

The painting is on YouTube and lasts just under 30 minutes
RBG Kew has very helpfully supplied indicators as to what comes up when in the video.

Timecodes:

00:00 - 00:20 - Intro
00:20 - 00:31 - What you'll need
00:31 - 02:25 - Preparation
02:25 - 03:55 - Painting the outline
03:55 - 04:54 - Adding initial details
04:54 - 07:55 - Laying down washes
07:55 - 09:56 - Mixing & painting the yellows
09:56 - 11:07 - Mixing & adding the orange details
11:07 - 12:21 - Mixing & painting the green stigma
12:21 - 13:18 - Building the colour using a dry brush technique
13:18 - 14:16 - Adding in another wash
14:16 - 15:27 - Mixing & painting darker colours
15:27 - 18:29 - Adding fine details
18:29 - 18:51 - The finished painting
18:51 - 19:20 - Why botanical art is important
19:20 - 19:29 - Outro

More about Lucy T Smith, her artwork and videos

Lucy T Smith tlking about creating botanical art - including botanical watercolours - at the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens in May 2018

Lucy T Smith is a highly regarded botanical illustrator who has won a number of international awards.

She has been Freelance botanical illustrator at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for the last 20 years.
She also works on commission.

You can see. more of her videos in my blog posts as follows

VIDEO: Watercolour painting of a pomegranate by Lucy T Smith (January 2021)
Kew Video: What is Botanical Art? (April 2019)
Lucy Smith filmed by BBC News (2018)

You can see more of her artwork on the following websites:

website http://www.lucytsmith.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/palmsmithy/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Palmsmithy/
Kew Gardens - Meet Lucy T Smith, award-winning botanical illustrator | Kew - Lucy is one of a number of highly skilled freelance botanical illustrators working at Kew to produce line drawings for scientific plant publications.

2 Comments

VIDEO: Watercolour painting of a pomegranate by Lucy T Smith

3/1/2021

1 Comment

Lucy T Smith was recently asked to do a video for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
The full film - which is 40 minutes long - was produced as part of their current display of Renaissance Watercolours.

This film was produced for the Renaissance Watercolours display on until April 2021 at the V&A Museum

This is the 40 minute video - enjoy!

Sit back and relax as award winning botanical artist Lucy T Smith paints a watercolour of a pomegranate using traditional techniques.

Lucy T Smith is a highly regarded botanical illustrator who has won a number of international awards.

She has been Freelance botanical illustrator at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for the last 20 years.
She also works on commission.

You can see more of the artwork produced by Lucy T Smith on the following websites:

website http://www.lucytsmith.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/palmsmithy/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Palmsmithy/
Kew Gardens - Meet Lucy T Smith, award-winning botanical illustrator | Kew - Lucy is one of a number of highly skilled freelance botanical illustrators working at Kew to produce line drawings for scientific plant publications.

Subscribe to this news blog to find out more
about artists producing botanical art and illustration
Blog posts are emailed to you when you
Subscribe to Botanical Art & Artists - News by Email
You can also follow Botanical Art and Artists on Twitter

Find out more about leading Botanical Artists around the world

Renaissance Watercolours - at the V&A Museum

This display presents for the first time watercolour during the Renaissance as a unified art form, highlighting its versatility and pivotal role in understanding, interpreting and documenting the natural world.

The V&A Museum is currently closed due to the Tier 4 Covid-19 Constraints in London - however you can see a number of botanical works from the Renaissance Watercolours display on the website including:

Watercolour, by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, about 1575, England. Museum no. AM.3267W-1856. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Daffodils and a Red Admiral Butterfly, watercolour, by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, about 1575, England. Museum no. AM.3267A-1856. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Citron, watercolour, by Vincenzo Leonardi, about 1640, Rome, Italy. Museum no. E.426-2009. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Lucy and I were planning a visit to see the exhibition just before the covid variant struck and numbers spiked in London. So now it will have to wait until it becomes safer and the Museum reopens.

Note that all visits must be booked when the V&A is open

1 Comment

<<Previous