Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medallists 2017 - from Asia and Australia

This is the first of three posts with information from interviews with the nine RHS Gold Medallists at the London Botanical Art Show 2017. 

​I've been interviewing RHS Gold Medallists since 2011 and you'll find a list of previous interviews at the end of this post. This post covers five artists who won medals in 2017:
Japan

• Keiko Fujita GM - Growth of Bamboo in Japan
• Mariko Ikeda GM (Japan) - Pandanus 
• Mayumi Ishii GM (Japan) - Roses

South Korea

• Suyeon Kim GM (South Korea) - Endemic Plants of Korea​

Australia

• Annie Hughes GM (2011, 2012, 2013, 2017) (Australia) Eucalyptus of Western Australia 

Upcoming posts will cover 

• interviews with three artists from the UK and one group from the USA who also won RHS Gold Medals for their Botanical Art.
• Tips from Gold Medal Artists.

ASIA

Keiko Fujita GM (Japan - Tokyo)

Keiko Fujita - Growth of Bamboo in Japan (RHS 2017)

Keiko Fujita GM lives in Tokyo, Japan. She's been a botanical artist for the last 19 years and prior to that was an interior designer.  Her art career started by studying at art school and then her son started to study ecology at his junior high school. His homework involved botanical paintings and that's the point at which she became interested in botanical art. Subsequently she found an adult education night school which provided a class. She is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists.​

Growth of Bamboo in Japan by Keiki Fujita (RHS 2017)

Her exhibit is about the Growth of Bamboo in Japan. She chose bamboo as it's a famous plant associated with Japan. Everybody knows about "Bamboo" (eg that it's very invasive) but nobody knows the different species!

She first had the idea for the exhibit seven years ago and started doing her research, finding plants and planning her exhibit. She finally started on the painting two years ago and each painting took about 3-4 months to do.

The paintings she produced:

• reflect the changes in the plant across the seasons.
• highlight the differentiating features of the different species which are sometimes very small.  She used macro drawings within circles to highlight the very important differentiating features.  Her labels beneath the paintings then explained each circle in terms of the technical terms for the different plant features.

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​Mariko Ikeda GM (Japan - Tochigi) - Winner of Best Exhibit 2017

Mariko Ikeda GM's Pandanus won Best Exhibit in Show and, unsurprisingly, it had lots of people looking at it and talking about for the duration of the show! (It's more commonly known as the screw pine).

Mariko took a botanical illustration class with Jenny Phillips in Sydney in 1999. Then studied Art and Design at University followed by a Ph.D in the Sciences of Art at the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences at the University of Tsukuba. Recently she took a botanical illustration class with Mikeo Ishikawa in 2015.

She lives in Tochigi and has been a Botanical Art Instructor at the Gakushuin University Lifelong Learning Centre in Tokyo since 2006. She's a member of the Japanese Association of Botanical Illustration and the American Society of Botanical Artists. However she has not exhibited widely.

Pandanus utilis, Pandanus Boninensis, Pandanus dubius by Mariko Ikeda

Pandanusu furcatus, Pandanus tectorius sensu lato, Pandanus odoratissimus by Mariko Ikeda

In terms of her exhibit she paints on vellum. She first soaks the vellum in water and then stretches it over a wooden board and tacks it the board on all four sides. Inbetween the vellum and the board she inserts Japanese paper to protect the vellum from the wood. 

She uses watercolour for her work and also used seven new brushes for each painting!

She has endeavoured to study the botanical science side of her plants. She did all the dissections herself. She also broke three knives trying to cut the phalanges (the segments of the fruit). She particularly enjoyed painting Pandanus dubius (the big one to the left of her head in the photograph) - but found it very difficult to paint!

I was particularly grateful to get feedback from Mariko at the Thursday night preview. She knew all about my previous posts with interviews and tips on Making A Mark and told me that she had found what people had shared with me, and I had written up, to be extremely useful in developing her botanical art and this exhibit. 

​So from one Gold Medal winning botanical artist to the next - this is why I do these posts....
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Mayumi Ishii GM (Japan - Tokyo) ​

Mrs Mayumi Ishi and three of her roses which won a Gold Medal (RHS 2017)

Mrs Mayumi Ishii GM specialises in painting roses and exhibited ten paintings of different specimen roses.

​She grows her roses in pots on her roof garden in Tokyo.  She's a big fan of Pierre-Joseph Redouté and  his collection of paintings of roses. Her painting style certainly has a look of Redouté. I recognised it straight away and asked her whether she liked him and her face lit up - after which we got on famously!  She made a point os studying pictures of the Redouté  paintings in terms of developing her botanical art.

Last week's show was her second show. She came two years ago and won a silver medal and then was invited back to the Rose Show held in 2015. (At which point I realised how few artists paint roses for the RHS!).

The gold medal winning exhibit of ten paintings of roses by Mrs Mayumi Ishi

Each painting takes her about one month. When she cuts the bloom she immediately places it in iced water to preserve it for as long as possible.  In general she works bloom and then stem, leaf and bud.

She paints on Arches HP or a paper which she seemed to be calling "BB Kant". She uses Winsor & Newton and Schminke paints.

The botanical artist on the Picture Panel which judged her roses was particularly impressed with her yellow rose and regarded the colour as outstanding. They also asked her to try and stick to just six paintings in future and to lose the brown tape around the edge of each mat.  

My thanks to her friend who helped with interpretation for the interview.
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Suyeon Kim GM (South Korea - Seoul)

Suyeon Kim from South Korea

Suyeon Kim - RHS Gold Medal winning exhibit of Endemic Plants of Korea

Suyeon Kim GM's Gold Medal was for an exhibit of Endemic Plants of Korea.

Suyeon did her Diploma Course at  Diploma in Botanical Illustration at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and graduated with her Diploma in 2011.

Her exhibits started over seven years ago as part of the work she did for her Diploma. At the time she couldn't complete it to her own satisfaction so she has continued to study plants endemic to Korea. 

She wanted to paint something useful for her exhibit and took advice from a Korean botanist before she started. She has no botanical background and learned about each plant as she studied it.

She has been painting on Fabriano 5 using Winsor & Newton and Holbein paints.

AUSTRALIA

Annie Hughes GM (Australia - Sydney) ​

Annie Hughes GM with her fourth gold medal winning exhibit (RHS 2017)

​For her fourth visit to the RHS - and her fourth Gold Medal Annie Hughes GM (2011, 2012, 2013, 2017 + BISCOT) chose to paint Eucalyptus of Western Australia .

Annie was born in Chile but has lived in Sydney, Australia for a long time. You can see her earlier gold medal winning exhibits at RHS Botanical Art Shows in 2011, 2012 and 2013 on my blog posts.

Eucalyptus of Western Australia by Annie Hughes GM (left side of exhibit)

Eucalyptus of Western Australia by Annie Hughes GM (right side of exhibit)

For her fourth visit to the RHS - and her fourth Gold Medal Annie Hughes GM (2011, 2012, 2013, 2017 + BISCOT) chose to paint Eucalyptus of Western Australia .

Annie was born in Chile but has lived in Sydney, Australia for a long time. You can see her earlier gold medal winning exhibits at RHS Botanical Art Shows in 2011, 2012 and 2013 on my blog posts.

She chose to paint the eucalyptus this time around because she loves them.

Below is an account of how she approached this project. Given Annie is very experienced at winning Gold Medals this is very definitely a RECOMMENDED READ.

Identifying and sourcing plants: First she went to Perth Botanic Gardens to find the plants she wanted. Some studies she painted while she was there. For others she got cuttings and plants sent to her by post by the Botanic Garden and others. It takes a lot of different sources to get decent plant material to work with.

Measurements and records: She did a lot of research while at the Botanic Gardens - and took and recorded a lot of measurements. She makes drawings in situ of the growing tree and also took photographs of the it in situ for reference. 

Colour mixes: She also does copious numbers of colour swatches to identify all the pigments she needs  to know and what the colour mix looks like in different gradations.

Elapsed Time: The whole project took her five months from start to finish. However, the painting on the extreme left of her exhibit was actually painted while she had a dislocated shoulder and a broken rib! Sheer willpower and determination got the paintings finished on time.

How she paints: She paints very quickly.

• Typically she uses no more than two washes.
• However her paint hits the paper first time at the colour, tone and saturation she level she needs - on wet paper.
• She's not a fan of wishy washy washes and building up glazes very slowly.
• She tends to mix her colours on the paper - but she always has a plan for what she is doing.
• She uses masking fluid to mask out any areas where the white needs to be preserved.
• She never ever uses body colour!

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More interviews with Gold Medal winning botanical artist

2016

• Interviews from the 2016 RHS London Botanical Art Show #1 - covering covers four artists from Asia - three from Japan and one from Thailand.
• Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medallists 2016 - from Australia and South Africa
• Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medallists - UK and Europe ​​

​2015

• (an overdue) Review of RHS Botanical Art 2015 - highlighting Gold Medal Winners, observations and tips

2014

• Three RHS Gold Medals for Botanical Art and a video interview (26 October 2014) - you can see the video interview here 

2013

• Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medal Winners (18 Apr 2013) - Interviews with eight botanical artists who won Gold Medals at the RHS Botanical Art Show in April 2013.

2012

• 7 Gold Medal Winners at RHS Botanical Art 2012 (17 Mar 2012)

2011

• RHS Botanical Art Show & Five Gold Medal Winners (21 Mar 2011)​

There are also two pages of interest to all botanical artists thinking of submitting to the RHS

• RHS Botanical Art Exhibitions - both current and an archive
• NEW PAGE Tips from RHS Gold Medallists

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