Prep Monday before Pittsburgh tour starting Saturday

September 17, 2013September 17, 2013 | Gaynor's Flora

Today is Monday (Tuesday really). On Friday I go to the US. Next week is the opening of the Hunt Institutes 14th International Exhibition of Botanical art and Illustration. My picture will be part of the exhibition and I will be there at the opening. What excitement – I think. My head is only just being able to think about it.

The last few months have been extremely busy between painting, teaching, exhibitions, demos and large family visitations. I have now started the last of the six Crab Apple series of pictures. None are complete, but I now have enough detail to complete each one – I hope. I was worried about getting all the detail I needed for the Golden Hornet as I had not studied the leaves and growing habit in detail. But now I am well on the way with it – as long as the fruit from my new tree continues to grow and ripen without falling off the branch before I get back from the US. I am doing the apple branch from this section of the tree. Unfortunately it doesn’t have all the leaves as per the photo, as I have been removing them one at a time to copy!

Back to the trip. I have been doing the usual things that one does before going away. Choosing and un-choosing suitable clothes for such an expedition. Apparently it is still very warm there. Making it difficult to make the right choices when I am freezing here! Also I have to bear in mind that apart fro Pittsburgh I am hoping to avoid towns whilst over there and try and find some nice places to walk and things to sketch – thus enough sketch books, pencil etc.

My additional luxury is that the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) has their conference in Pittsburgh at the same time. I am booked to take part in that.

My tickets are booked, visa sorted, pencils and sketch books ready, prints of the work to be exhibited are also ready to take with me – in case……. I’m not ready though!

I intend to write a short blog up until and during the trip.

Busy, busy two.

August 22, 2013April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

We have just had two very successful weekends with the Summer exhibition and open studio.

As this is not part of an overall open studio event, just something we have decided to do for the last four years during the summer break(!), we don’t expect loads of visitors – only those particularly interested in botanical art. Our expectations were met on that score, but exceeded in other ways.

I like everyone else has had to keep a tight reign on finances during the downturn and many times I wondered if if I was silly either having an exhibition or keeping one or two classes going. However, people have been faithful, students have continued and customers have kept on coming. I noticed during the last two weekends that things are definitely picking up. We were told so on the news and this was enforced through my customers.

Thank you to all those who came and showed such Interest.

I am now working my socks off to prepare for a fair this coming weekend. It will be at Folkington Manor, on the A27 between Lewes and Eastbourne. Just follow this link to get information about what it is and where: Folkington Manor Antiques & Fine art Fair. There seems a lot of interesting things going on there, so that it should be a fun family day out. I hope to see you there. Please make yourself known to me when passing. I am in the Flint barns where the Auctioneer Michael Hogben will be giving free evaluations.

Next week we are taking some pictures up to Patchings for the UK Coloured Pencil Society annual exhibition. If you are interested in coloured pencils, then go and have a look at the exhibition between 1 September and 6 October. I hope you are interested as I have done a lot of things on this blog in relation to coloured pencil.

3 September I will be doing a demonstration in using coloured pencil with botanical art, for the Midhurst Art Society. It would be fantastic to get more people interested in both using coloured pencil as an art medium and botanical art and illustration in particular.

I love what I do and I feel so blessed that I have been given this gift and that I can practice it and have the ability to teach and enthuse others (or so it seems).

However, where is the painting?

I am also writing some tutorials (again coloured pencil in botanical art), for the London Art College where I am a tutor. Up until now they have only used watercolour for botanical art, but once I have got the tutorials finished this opens up the opportunity for those who want to use CP. Yes, I also have assignments to mark and I find this fascinating. People put such a lot of effort into improving their skills. it’s amazing being part of it.

So where is the painting?

Not long until I go to the US for the opening of the 14th international exhibition of Botanical art and illustration at the Hunt Institute of botanical documentation, Pittsburgh. My picture Magnolia x soulangeana: Maturing Blooms is part of the exhibition until December, when it will go on a three-year tour of the US until the next International exhibition.

Whilst in America, the American SBA has their conference at the same time, so I will be taking part in that too. The Hunt and the ASBA paper toy work together on coinciding this event so that participants in either the exhibition or the conference benefit from both. During this, I will be on a panel discussing botanical art and how I do it!

So the painting. Burning the candle at all of its ends, I am now working on the Malus ‘Gorgeous’ for about the fourth time! But, I am doing an entirely new composition. I have decided that the ‘Gorgeous’ ones I had already done, didn’t go with the other ones as a series. Hopefully I will get the series finished so that I can exhibit with the RHS next year.

I think this is enough for now. I’m sorry that there is so much reading and no pretty pictures this time. I’m afraid I had too much to say.

Busy, busy – one!

August 1, 2013April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Where to begin?

Since I came home after the fantastic course with Sarah Simblet I have been catching up in between family visits.

Some of our children stayed on and off with us throughout June and will be returning next week with other members of the family. All in all we will be eleven of us. They will be keeping out of my hair until Monday as I have a three-day workshop this coming weekend.

This workshop is well supported and the topic will be ‘Summer fruits’. However several of those taking part will be painting Roses. I suppose this is a form of lateral thinking. I had a think about any fruits that we have in the garden at the moment. There is in fact very little as we are between flushes of the usual varieties. The Raspberries and Strawberries are finished until a new lot arrive and it is too early for Blackberries, although they are now beginning to turn a beautiful black.

Normally Cobnuts look really beautiful to paint at this time of year with their curly green skirts and pixie hats. There isn’t a single one on our tree this year. The Rowan tree has a lot of fruit on it and it is ripening fast. The apples are still very small and of all the crab apple trees in the garden there is only one that is showing any hint of warmth in colour. Actually, thank goodness for that as I have been doing so many other things other than continuing the Crab apple series of paintings recently.

One of my students who will be painting roses during this coming workshop, will be continuing a picture she has been doing for the last three weeks. She has had several days with one-to-one tuition as the subject is very special. Her father was a Nurseryman and developed a rose which he named Antonia – the name of his first grandchild. As far as they are aware there are only three examples of the rose left and this is the reason she wanted to paint it. Not only that, she is using coloured pencil.

To demonstrate various relevant techniques to aid my student, I started painting the rose myself and have decided to use it as a step-by-step tutorial.

I don’t think that I have mentioned before that I am the Botanical Art Tutor for the London Art College. It is a very good organisation who provide art courses in various mediums and with many topics via the Internet or per correspondence. My predecessor wrote a fair amount of the course as it stands today, but it focuses on watercolour as well as a little graphite and pen&ink. I am now in the process of writing some tutorials for coloured pencil botanical artists to add to what is there already. Therefore in time we will have very good tuition to help botanical artists with their watercolour and coloured pencil studies.

The above

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is my finished Antonia Rose which I will be using for the step-by-step studies with the London Art College. I hope you like it.

Sarah Simblet course

July 18, 2013April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

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Thank you for your response. ✨

I came back nearly a week ago from a weeks course at the Ruskin School of Drawing with Sarah Simblet as the tutor. I had an amazing week away.

The course was Botanical drawing. Sarah has authored several art books, on drawing in general, anatomy for the artist, botany for the artist and is now working on a new book. She is a very good artist and also does a lot of research in the areas in which she chooses to teach. To cap it all, Sarah is a lovely person and very supportive of her students when struggling with new media.

The reason for going on the course was to draw in pen and ink. I have always been intimidated by this medium and therefore hoped that I would be less so once I had had a little expert tuition. Sarah constantly draws in black and white and in reality with her work you feel that you are looking at it in colour. Getting to that level of expertise would be something I would love to achieve, but it possibly won’t be in this lifetime.

Sarah got us to relinquish our feelings of control when drawing by using unusual implements. After this she encouraged us to build ourselves up again using the new medium (ink) and new implements (pen). It was exciting. I can’t show you pictures of the pulling down, but this is an example of learning to build up again. It is a plant I have never seen before – Molucella laevis. Very attractive. In fact whilst in Oxford I did see another painting of one.

We went to the Herbarium and were given a treat. All of Ferdinand Bauer’s work that went into the Flora Graeca was laid out for us. It was amazing. His sketch books and all his notes were there. He had a colour coding system that he used when doing his sketches in situ. He could spend years away from any studio and when he returned he used his notes to make his botanical paintings for the Florum. Therefore we were able to see his actual sketches, notes and final paintings before they were eventually published.

I made new friends on the course who are from around the world. Two I will be meeting again in a few weeks time at the opening of the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation Exhibition in Pittsburgh.

I am now coming down to earth and catching up on all I need to do. But hopefully I will get my act together to keep the blog updated.

Thank you for reading this. I do recommend Sarah Simblet’s summer courses.

Successful first Open Studios weekend

May 7, 2013April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Well, we had a lovely weekend weather-wise. Warm and sunny, inviting people to go out and enjoy it. It felt as though the warmer weather was at last arriving. I believe it is due to change tonight!

This first weekend, we had open studios on Saturday, Sunday and Monday as it was a bank holiday. This coming weekend it will be only the Saturday and Sunday. We had more visitors than ever during Sunday although the numbers were a little disappointing on the Saturday and Monday. However, the huge interest of those who came certainly outweighed the lack of numbers.

The Chichester Open Studios – of which I am a part – sadly had to compete with Open Studios in Emsworth and a fairly local food fair. However, we have no such competition during the coming weekend.

My husband manned the conservatory where my pictures are hung and I continued working in my shed at the bottom of the garden. I say working, but in fact I did spend a lot of time talking to people, describing and showing them what I am doing. I think that the main surprise for them was the huge amount of preparation needed before even commencing a picture.

I had my crab apple paintings (work in progress) laid out. Four of them have much of the apple composition on them, but little more. A fifth one I am considering re-doing in a different way and the sixth one is not started. I was able to show people my sketch book and additional sketches preparing for the paintings. This included a couple of pages of apples on the branch, dissections of all but one apple, the flowers as seem on the tree (for each apple variety and done during a ten-day window a year ago), and the preparation I am presently doing – dissections of each flower. As you can imagine, there was surprise at use of the microscope. In fact one person came down to the shed to see me working and felt I wasn’t doing so by using the microscope! They more than appreciated its use by the time they eventually left!

It was a very useful weekend for me, in that in talking people through what I am doing, I was also able to think through a little more clearly about what I might include or exclude in the final pictures.

Thank you to all those who have shown interest in the project so far – and of course my work in general. Please do take the opportunity to come and see me this coming weekend. The address is on my website.

Open studios the next two weekends

May 2, 2013April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Spring is coming. At last!

This coming weekend I will be opening my studio during the Chichester Open Studios event. It will be open from Saturday to the bank holiday Monday and again the following Saturday and Sunday.

My pictures will be hung in the conservatory and prints and cards will also be displayed there. Luckily my husband Robin will be manning this area whilst I am down in the shed at the bottom of the garden.

As the event is called ‘Open Studios’, I have the excuse to stay in the shed all day long. I will be getting on with either painting my current piece of work or doing the preparations for other aspects of it.

Normally people do like to find their way down to the shed to see what an artists studio is like. I expect all studios are very different, just as the mess in mine varies according to what I am doing – even though it is generally botanical.

During ‘Open studios’ I can’t say that I work too effectively. I enjoy the visits throughout the two weekends as people are so interested and have so many questions. As I work in coloured pencil, watercolour or graphite, I am given so many opportunities to explain and demonstrate the different techniques. Sometimes, visitors become so interested they want to learn more. This is exciting.

Presently I am working on a series if crab apple paintings. There are meant to be six different crab apples, but my neighbour has just gone and bought a new one which is quite beautiful.

My husband Robin bought me a microscope for my birthday and at last the crab apple flowers are beginning to open, allowing me to capture their detail. Hopefully, more of the trees will be coming into blossom, in which case I will be using the microscope when dissecting the flowers. This might well be art with a difference for those who visit me down in the shed during these next two weeks.

I do hope you will join me.

The address is on my website, but have a look on the Chichester Open studios website for instructions as to how to get here. It is http://www.chichesterarttrail.org/.

I really look forward to seeing you in my shed!

FRom an earlier ‘Open Studios’ event:

The Artist at work in the shed!

Teaching with Fieldbreaks at Goodnestone Park Gardens

April 27, 2013April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

On Monday of this week I went to Kent to teach at Goodnestone Park Gardens. What a beautiful area. It is so peaceful and they are so welcoming there.

This is the second year that I have had classes at Goodnestone Park with Fieldbreaks and the workshops are seemingly more popular each time.

I had a lovely group of people with half of them using coloured pencil, one eventually chose to use graphite and the remainder watercolour.

I think that things were about a week behind in comparison to where I live. In some places you could almost see the green tips begin to appear on the hedging, there were loads of daffodils, no tulips, the Magnolia x soulangeana was still closed but nearly ready to burst although the Magnolia x stillata was fully open and the Camelias were glorious. There was in fact a lot to choose from if only you looked and were able to see. The flowers eventually chosen to paint were the above, plus Primroses, Periwinkle, Hellebore and Fritillary. The results were very good and as far as I can tell, all those taking part were pleased with their results.

I get quite chuffed when students achieve what they set out to do – and in some instances even exceed that.

The only thing I hadn’t been prepared for was the summer warmth. I had layers to keep me warm, but even so I hadn’t expected it to be as warm and lovely as it was.

I will be having another workshop at Goodnestone Park with Field Breaks in June. Come and join us in this peaceful environment.

Family visit and lack of painting

April 26, 2013 | Gaynor's Flora

Early in April, my sister from Australia came to visit to escape partying around her 60th birthday down-under. She brought with her my two nieces, one partner and two grandchildren (3 and 8 months). My two children with a partner also came to see their cousins and aunt, so the house was full and cracking at the seams.

We had a lovely time over the three weeks they were here, although my sister was not too happy that no-one questioned when purchasing her first wrinkly ticket!!

Needless to say there has been no time to paint and I have been itching to get down into the peace and quiet of my studio at the bottom of the garden. It was of course already occupied!

However I did escape for for two days and one night. I spent the time at Goodnestone Park Gardens. But more on that in a separate blog.

The weather as you know has not been typical of April during their visit, although it is a little warmer than when they arrived. We did all get hefty colds in trying to appear tough and hardened Englishmen.

On Monday my children went back to Amsterdam, where they both live presently, taking with them one of the cousins and her partner. Today my sister and her other daughter and grandchildren returned to Australia.

The house is amazingly quiet!

Crab apple blooming delayed by cold!

April 1, 2013April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Well, we all want warm weather as soon as possible. We are tired of the cold and want to see normal signs of spring. But, at the moment I am grateful for the slight delay the weather affords me in relation to crab apple as blooming!

A positive. The sun is shining and although cold, it is dry. The world still looks good out there.

Why do I want a delay?

As you know, in doing the crab apple series of pictures, I intend to also include a dissection of each of the flowers. The flowers for each of the crab apples are so different. Some petit and strictly formed, whilst some are big and blowsy. If you have looked at the crab apple variety, you might have some idea as to what the flower might look like having seen the apple – but it takes me by surprise every time. An apple blossom is not the same from one variety to another. Have a look when you get the chance. Which is my favourite? I don’t know!

Anyway, during the coming crab apple blossoming period of normally about ten days, I will need to dissect a flower from each of my chosen varieties to examine, measure and sketch in preparation for the final pictures. I need to get this done If I am to succeed in even getting a chance at finishing the series this year. Getting a space at next years RHS exhibition is another issue!

Please keep your fingers crossed for me that I will get done all the dissections in time as my sister and her family will be staying with us from this coming Saturday out April. My sister and family are coming from Australia, from the hottest summer ever recorded! I don’t see her too often and therefore want to spend as much time with her as possible. I have a plan.

At the moment, each of the crab apple trees have buds with the green leaves peeping out, except for the John Downie that only has pregnant buds. Hopefully the actual blossoming time will be a little delayed and maybe even be longer than the normal ten days. But, I will be getting up extra early to get at least a couple of hours work in before anyone gets up. But as one of my nieces has a 5 month old baby, maybe this is wishful thinking?

The following pictures are from the Malus Red Jade. This is how they are today 1April. Last year they were like this 18 March! Except for a sudden heat wave, it looks as though I might get a bit of the delay I had hoped for. Sorry I am so selfish!