NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

A watercolour catalogue to drool over!

20/12/2019

I'm a very big fan of comprehensive and well organised catalogues of art materials. I like people who take the trouble to provide information about the paints and other colour media that artists use - including pigment numbers and lightfastness ratings.

I also know from talking about the art materials used for botanical art with very many botanical artists that there's a keen interest amongst very many artists about what's best, what's on offer and what's new.

"New", of course, is a relative term. If you've not previously been aware of a brand, colours, associated materials then it's "new to you".

Colour - Introduction

Which is long way round of identifying that Jackson's Art have produced an extremely impressive 132 page guide in its Watercolour Catalogue 20/21. I've never ever seen one before that beats this one - and I've looked at lots over the years.

It covers:

colour media - watercolour paint / inks / sticks / pencils, gouache, graphite and charcoal
surface - watercolour paper / boards / panels / blocks and pads and cartridge pads
brushes - of various kinds
Studio - mediums, palettes, easels, storage and accessories

It's not available as a document. It's only available as a digital file. I don't blame them - it would cost a lot of money to produce as a print document and maintain the very necessary print quality on the colours and shades. Viewed on screen, what colours look is entirely down to how good your screen is and whether it is white balanced.

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ASBA 22nd Annual International - Awards

24/9/2019

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The American Society of Botanical Artists have now been announced the Awards for artwork in the 22nd Annual International Exhibition at the Marin Art & Garden Center in California.

BELOW you can click on:

the title of the artwork - to read the story behind its creation on the ASBA website
the artist's name - to go to her website - if one exists. (Plus Facebook Page if they have one)

Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum by Linda Medved Lufkin

Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum (Watercolor and gouache on paper, 28-1/2 X 20 inches) - copyright Linda Medved Lufkin 2018

Marin Art and Garden Center Best in Show Award ($500)

Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum
Linda Medved Lufkin
Facebook Page: Linda Medved Lufkin Botanical Art

I have to say I was hugely impressed by this painting when I saw it online for the first time and it seems a very worthy winner of Best in Show to me. I always think of this plant as a bit of a drama queen whenever I see it in gardens and Linda has caught that flavour and colour with her dynamic composition and very controlled colour palette. I also really loved her 'bad hair day' analogy about the complexity and structure of the leaves in her back story!

Her backstory provides a wonderful insight into how she approached painting a plant such as the Eryngium alpinum.

In 2018 I was shopping with Marilyn Garber at our flower wholesaler for the subject of the next class I was to teach at the Minnesota School of Botanical Art. It was entitled Enlarging Scale & Format. I was to teach my students to use a gridding system and enlarge a small subject by three times, which would use most of a full sheet of paper. I was looking for a plant that would offer my students enough complexity and detail that they would need to be very diligent in ‘mapping’ out the placement of their lines within each grid space and achieve a complex, but obtainable challenge. When I found the bouquets of Sea Holly, Eryngium alpinum, I knew that I found something that would work beautifully for our purposes. READ MORE

Linda uses the traditional technique of developing layers of transparent washes, then using a very small brush to develop detail, colour and form using the drybrush technique. She's been working as an Instructor at The Minnesota School of Botanical Art since 2016. Prior to this she worked for many years creating customised murals for clients. Linda has previously had work in and was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Portland School of Art, ME. in 1982. She has a strong exhibition record with ASBA in recent years.

ASBA's 19th and 20th International Annual Exhibitions
won The Richmond and Lili Bates Award in 2017 and The Helen Gray Garber Award in 2016
Also was selected for an exhibited in the Botanical Art World Wide: America’s Flora’ and ‘Out of the Woods: Trees in Public Gardens’ exhibitions.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Award for Print or Drawing ($500)

Fascinator Paeonia lactiflora (Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 13.5 x 19 inches) - copyright Patricia Luppino

Fascinator Paeonia lactiflora (Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 13.5 x 19 inches)
Patricia Luppino

Born in Brooklyn, New York and a lifelong resident of Long Island. Now retired from a long career as an IT professional. She started studying botanical art in 2005 and earned the SBA Diploma in Botanical Painting with Distinction in 2008. Since then she's exhibited in various juried and group exhibitions of botanical art - including (prior to this exhibition) the 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 20th and 21st ASBA Annual International Botanical Art Exhibitions with the Horticultural Society of New York, the 1st Triennial Botanical Art Exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden. This year Patricia is also exhibiting in the 16th International Exhibition at the Hunt.

Patricia and I were emailing backwards and forwards yesterday about another matter and she never said a word about her award!

ASBA Eleanor Wunderlich Award ($500)

Physalis Physalis peruviana (Watercolor on paper, 11-5/8 x 8-3/8 inches)
Svetlana Lanse (Vinnikova) (
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/svetlanawatercolor

Svetlana Lanse is a professional artist and art teacher living in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from Higher School of Folk Arts (institute) where she learned about botanical art by copying artwork by Pierre Joseph Redouté and Maria Sibylla Merian. She is currently trying to popularise botanical art in Russia using Instagram (@botanical_watercolor) and has more than 85,000 followers. In May 2018 she was juror of Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition (Russia) with Alexander Viazmensky, Natalia Alatortseva, Yaroslav Bazanova and Darya Fomicheva.

Richmond and Lili Bates Award for Excellence
in recognition of an Artist by a Fellow Artist ($300)

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Samba Dancer' (Watercolor on paper, 15-1/2 x 11-½ inches)
Mitsuko Schultz (no website)

Mitsuko Schultz moved to Los Angeles from Kyoto, Japan in 1996. Her passion for plants and flowers saw her working at the UCLA Botanical Garden where she began her horticulture studies when then led to her becoming a floral designer in Los Angeles - and then eventually to her taking up botanical art.. Her work has been included in the Hunt's 16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration, Filoli’s Annual Botanical Art Exhibitions (Roth Award recipient in 2018), ASBA Annual Internationals (received an Honorable mention in 2017, catalogue cover in 2018), Out of the Woods, Botanical Art Worldwide America’s Flora and numerous other shows in California since 2011. She is also a member of the Botanical Artist Guild of Southern California.

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Honourable Mentions

This year there are two Honourable Mentions.

Karen Kluglein has a marvellous bunch of grapes - Joie de Vivre Vitis vinifera (Watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 inches)
Tammy McEntee's very lovely coloured pencil drawing is of an Ornamental Gourd Cucurbita pepo (Colored pencil and graphite on paper, 12 x 12 inches)

The Back Stories

You can see the remaining artworks and read about their back stories by clicking the links on this list of artists selected for the exhibition (click the artists tab and then click the link in each artist's name to read the story)

The exhibition is at The Studio, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Frances Drake Blvd, Ross, CA 94957. It opened last Sunday and continues until 17th November 2019.

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Book Review: 'Roses' by Rosie Sanders

9/9/2019

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I was expecting Rosie Sanders's new book about Roses to be very good - but wasn't expecting to be quite so bowled over by her watercolour paintings of roses which fill the pages of this large book.

Her botanical paintings are as as large on the page as they are on the walls of the gallery in Chelsea where her latest solo exhibition will be opening on the day it is published.

Rosie has been drawing, sketching and painting roses for this book and her latest exhibition (see the end for details) for the last three years.

She grows all her own roses and knows them all by name - even if she sometimes forgets where she has put them - until they flower!

She's also been making notes about her roses on a regular basis, what they have been getting up to and what colours they are displaying. Many artists find writing about their subjects helps to fix their image in their brains - and Rosie seems to be no exception. The notes are divided between facsimiles of her handwritten notes and typed up versions of the same. I rather assume the latter are the ones which might just have rings from her coffee mug on them as she sits in her garden in the morning with her cup of coffee surveying what has been happening to her roses in the last day or so.

This approach to the text helps make this book feel a lot more personal to Rosie and I really like it. More of the individual seems to come to the fore. Rosie's writing is graphic and excellent and I personally found it very readable. I do wonder however whether reading handwriting might make this book a little bit more of a challenge for those who don't use English as their first language.

Red Sensation

Shades of Red

What I particularly like about this book is there as a much clearer sense of the process - which should particularly appeal to those botanical artists who like her paintings.

On some double page spreads we also have preliminary drawings and colour charts of the colours used in the painting - with colours randomly noted either next to the colour boxes or in the text. She also includes some fast watercolour sketches recording habit and colour notes.

This is a timelapse video of Rosie Sanders painting a rose in watercolour.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté's book of paintings about Les roses is the pre-eminent tour de force in the "books about roses by botanical artists" category of artists' botanical art books. His roses are perfection and I doubt anybody will ever better it in terms of portraying perfect specimens.

However in terms of painting roses in reality - I think Rosie's book will also be seen as a tour de force and a standard. She paints roses as we see them in the garden - some new and fresh with both buds and blooms - while others are fading and past their best, In effect she has created a florilegium of roses growing in her garden - and has painted some on more than one occasion - notably her one yellow rose 'Celebration'.

She seems to have a particular affinity with the back of a rose and what happens behind or underneath the petals of the rose in question. It suggests an artist in love with all stages of the life cycle and the multiplicity of colours and shades they can go through from first bud to last breath.

Book cover only has the title on the front cover on the paper slip cover

The Introduction to the book provides a history of the rose in in the history of ancient times, middle ages and more recent time - as a symbol, in art, in war, in religion, as an emblem of love. It also comments on the different types of rose and where they hail from. I found it one of those introductions which is so packed full of information that it's probably best read in small chunks.

However there is no obvious connection between the Introduction and the paintings. It's almost as if we have two books in one cover.

What's missing from the book - and I do think this is worth noting - is any sort of introduction to Rosie and why she likes painting roses and what her project comprises. Instead we find bits out as we read her notes - and I do very much recommend you read all the notes!

The book has an interesting and unique index in which every rose in the book is presented by a thumbnail. Below you can see two of the tree pages which form the index.

An Index by rose (and name and size) at the end of the book

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This is a woman who likes BIG projects and has a track record of pulling them off in spectacular fashion!

Notwithstanding the bits which don't quite work for me, I think this is an excellent book which will be much appreciated by all rose lovers - who will doubtless appreciate that many of the roses were sourced from David Austin.

I also expect that very many botanical artists will be buying this book in order to study Rosie's approach - which - in short - is grounded in much time spent in intense observation and an awful lot of effort in creating hundreds of studies, sketches and paintings - of which these are the ones which deserve a public stage.

The production qualities of this large book are also excellent. The photography of both drawings and paintings is top notch and the printing is superb with a very robust cover and binding. (For those interested in such things the reproduction was done by Rival Colour Ltd. - who are based in Greenwich - and the printing was done in China (as happens to most books these days) by 1010 Printing International Ltd and is a company associated with books which have won British Book Design & Production Awards.

ORDER THIS BOOK

Rosie Sanders' Roses: A celebration in botanical art from Amazon UK
Rosie Sanders' Roses: A Celebration of Botanical Art from Amazon.com

Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Batsford Ltd - an imprint of Pavilion Books
Publication date: 26 Sept. 2019 - the date her exhibition opens in Chelsea
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1849945527
ISBN-13: 978-1849945523
Product Dimensions: 24.5 x 31.1 cm
RRP: £30

In effect, the book is the same size and format as her last book Rosie Sanders' Flowers: A Celebration of Botanical Art

The dark side of the moon

About the author and artist - Rosie Sanders

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Roses by Rosie Sanders

14/8/2019

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Next month, in September 2019, the award-winning and best-selling artist Rosie Sanders has:

an exhibition opening of 20 new botanical paintings in watercolour at Jonathan Cooper's Park Walk Gallery in Chelsea
a book being published

Rosie Sanders has been awarded five Gold Medals for her botanical art by the Royal Horticultural Society, has been regularly exhibited in various exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew Gardens, and has exhibited at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University and has work in their collection of botanical art.

She is renowned for creating very large paintings of flowers in watercolour.

Rosie Sanders: By Any Other Name

Rosie Sanders: By Any Other Name
Venue: Jonathan Cooper, Park Walk Gallery, 20 Park Walk, London, SW10 0AQ
Dates: 26th September - 12th October 2019

Rosie has been exhibiting with Jonathan Cooper since 2002 and it is a mark of a very successful and best selling artist that in general she has a solo exhibition at his gallery every other year. Latterly these have coincided with the publication of a new book (see below)

This exhibition will include 20 new paintings - with most included in her new book. I'll be visiting this exhibition and writing a review - with images - late in September.

The exhibition will focus primarily on the beauty of the rose, and will feature many of the works included in the publication Rosie Sanders’ Roses: A celebration in botanical art, which will be released by Batsford in September 2019.

Gallery hours are 10 am – 6.30 pm (Monday to Friday) and 11 am – 4 pm on Saturdays.

You can see some of the images of her paintings which will be in the exhibition on her Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/rosiesanders.4apple/

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Rosie Sanders' Roses - a celebration in botanical art

Rosie Sanders' Roses: A celebration in botanical art is due to be published on 5 September 2019 by Batsford.

This NEW BOOK is a follow up to her very popular and successful book Rosie Sanders' Flowers: A Celebration of Botanical Art, also published by Batsford in late 2016 (UK) and early 2017 (USA).

I predict this one will be every bit as popular - if not more so - than the last. One of the most popular "how to" query about flower painting on Google is "how to paint a rose in watercolour" which generates over 90 MILLION responses.

This book focuses just on roses - however it's not a "how to" book.

It's introduced by an introduced by an extended essay on the resonance of the rose as a timeless motif - all across the world - in our art, literature, poetry, folklore and gardens.
it contains over 80 stunning paintings and sketches are shown for the first time
the text sitting next to the image of her painting includes the text from the personal letter which explains the creative and emotional process she went through to create it.

I've not seen a copy yet but I've no reason to suppose it won't be just as good as the last one which was very highly rated.

ORDER THIS BOOK

Rosie Sanders' Roses: A celebration in botanical art from Amazon UK
Rosie Sanders' Roses: A Celebration of Botanical Art from Amazon.com

These are affiliate links if you order using these links to help me pay for the cost of this website.

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Green Gold: Plants from the Travels of John Jeffrey

7/5/2019

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Pinus jeffreyi Jeffrey Pine - Branch and cone. Watercolour by Nicola Macartney

The exhibition Green Gold: Plants from the Travels of John Jeffrey has opened in Edinburgh.
Venue: Gateway Gallery, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Dates: 27th April - 30th June 2019
Time: 10:00 - 17:45
Admission: FREE

The exhibition celebrates the life and achievements of plant hunter John Jeffrey. It focuses on his travels in North America in the middle of the nineteenth century. Below you can find out more about:

botanical paintings in the exhibition
John Jeffrey, the plant hunter
the book associated with the exhibition

Paintings of plants collected by John Jeffrey

The exhibition includes six especially commissioned watercolour paintings by Nicola Macartney featuring trees and flowering plants collected by Jeffrey in North America.

I met Nicola last July when she was exhibiting her suite of six paintings at the RHS Botanical Art Show - where she won a Silver Gilt Medal for her exhibit (see below).

Her paintings were created from specimens of plants growing in the Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh and Benmore. - quite possibly from the cones and seeds sent back by Jeffrey to Scotland.

"Plants Collected by John Jeffrey" - exhibit at the RHS Botanical Art Show by Nicola Macartney

Nicola Macartney standing next to her watercolour painting of Pinus jeffreyi - the Jeffrey Pine

The exhibition also includes plus materials from RBGE including specimens from the Herbarium, and letters and minutes from their archives.

About John Jeffrey

John Jeffrey was born in Forneth, Parish of Clunie in east Perthshire. He worked as a gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. A Scottish group known as the Oregon Association (established 1849) appointed him to travel to North America and find trees and collect their seeds.

The intention was that he would continue the efforts of botanist David Douglas (1799–1834) who made three separate trips from Britain to North America. (The Oregon state tree is named after him - its common name being Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii, once Pinus douglasii).

Jeffrey's travels involved:

a journey by ship in 1850 across the North Atlantic - from Gravesham in Kent to Hudson Bay
travelling more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) overland to reach the Columbia River.
Four years spent exploring Washington, Oregon, and California

The odds were stacked against John Jeffrey from the start. The distances to be travelled across British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains were extraordinary, while the territory itself was challenging due to the extreme cold, high altitude, and unrest among Native American tribes
Unearthing the epic true story of a missing Scottish explorer | First published in The Scotsman, 25 April 2019

While exploring he sent the specimens he collected back to Scotland and kept journals of his travels. He discovered 24 new species many of which now grow in the gardens of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and Benmore.

Thanks to his work however the seeds from 119 species were collected and more than 400 plant specimens sent to the Herbarium at RBGE, including seeds and/or specimens of 35 conifer species. Two plant species still bear his name, Dodecatheon jeffreyi and Pinus jeffreyi while a third,Penstemon jeffreyanus, was later renamed by botanists
John Jeffrey rediscovered | Botanics Stories | Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

In 1854 he disappeared while travelling east from San Diego across the Colorado Desert. Despite attempts to find him, he was never seen again.

Below is a video by Gabriel Hemery illustrating the extent of his travels

REFERENCES:

John Jeffrey | Wikipedia
John Jeffrey rediscovered | Botanics Stories | Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Green Gold: The Epic True Story of Victorian Plant Hunter John Jeffrey by Gabriel Hemery
Unearthing the epic true story of a missing Scottish explorer | First published in The Scotsman, 25 April 2019

Green Gold (the book)

The exhibition is associated with the publication of Green Gold by Gabriel Hemery.

Gabriel Hemery is the author of

He's a forest scientist by profession and is also the Chief Executive of the Sylva Foundation and has a website which celebrates the wonders of trees, forests and wood.

Below are two videos

the first illustrates the extent of the travels of John Jeffrey across North America and down the west coast before he disappeared on his way to Arizona.
the second is an interview with Gabriel Hemery in The Edinburgh Bookshop - in which he reads an extract from his book

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Marianne Hazlewood in Society of Scottish Artists Exhibition - opens TODAY!

22/12/2018

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I'm always really pleased when I see botanical artists exhibiting their artwork in the annual exhibitions of national art societies which show a range of fine artwork.

Botanical artists who enter and get selected for open exhibitions of national art societies raise their profile and can impress art galleries on the lookout for new artists!

In addition, one is never really promoting botanical art when merely preaching to those who are already converted! Botanical art needs to shown more widely if others are to see what wonderful work is done in the name of botanical art. The open exhibitions of national art societies are a jolly good place to start to stimulate the consciousness of new buyers..

It's for this reason I'm very pleased to highlight

two watercolour paintings of Dryopteris by Marianne Hazlewood.
two further opportunities to exhibit with prestigious national watercolour societies

Crop of Dryopteris sieboldii (painting 390mm x 262mm | framed 730mm x 535mm | Watercolour on Fabriano 5 | copyright Marianne Hazlewood)

Marianne Hazlewood has had two of her botanical paintings selected for the 121st Annual Exhibition of the The Society of Scottish Artists.

You can see them hanging in the exhibition which opened its doors to the public today - 23rd December 2018 - at Edinburgh’s Royal Scottish Academy. (see link to exhibition)

Crop of Dryopteris affinis (painting: 390mm x 262mm | framed: 730mm x 535mm | Watercolour on Fabriano 5 | copyright Marianne Hazlewood

Details are below if you plan to visit.

Venue: The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL (How to visit)
Dates: 23 Dec 2018 – 17 Jan 2019. (CLOSED 25 & 26 DEC)
Hours: Mon-Sat: 10am – 5pm, Sun: 12pm – 5pm (1 Jan: 12pm – 5pm)
Entry: £2, SSA Members FREE, children and young people FREE

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Other Open Exhibitions for Watercolour Artists

For those interested in entering the equivalent exhibitions in England see my two blog posts about:

Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour - Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 207th Exhibition in 2019 (Digital entry / deadline 4th January 2019) - the exhibition is held at the Mall Galleries on The Mall in London.
Royal Watercolour Society - RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2019 - Call for Entries (Digital entry / deadline 14 January 2019) - the exhibition is held at the Bankside Gallery, next door to Tate Modern.

Note all entries are digital - so no need to worry about post!

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Margaret Mee 1909-1988: 30th Anniversary

30/11/2018

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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of Margaret Mee (1909 - 1988) the renowned painter of the flora of the Amazon Forest and dedicated environmental conservationist.

She and her husband had returned to England in November 1988 for a major exhibition of her paintings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew coupled with the launch of a book Margaret Mee in Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forest (1988) based on Margaret's diaries - and discussion about the future of her paintings.

Very sadly she was killed at the age of 79 in a car crash in Leicester on 30 November 1988 a few months after her last expedition to the Amazon.

Those attending her memorial service, held at Kew on 16 January 1989, included representatives of the Duke of Edinburgh, the Brazilian government, and the world of botany.
In May 1989, her ashes were scattered in the Amazon Forest by her husband and close friends. A plaque was fixed to a tree to record her passing.

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

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!

Plus a number of plants are named after her, including:

Heliconia chartacea var. meeana - which has vivid blue berries
Aechmea polyantha - a vaselike Bromeliad discovered by Margaret Mee

On About Margaret Mee you can find out about:

A Timeline of her life and work
Margaret Mee and the Amazon Flora
Margaret Mee's Paintings - and her approach to painting
Exhibitions of Margaret Mee's paintings - in the UK, USA and Brazil
The Margaret Mee Trust and Fellowship Programme

Videos and Slideshows of her work

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