First week of the Palmengarten, Frankfurt exhibition

November 1, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

This week we have had visitors at home, therefore I have done little work. However, now it is catch-up time.

I have been sorting through some of the over 450 photograp

hs Robin and I took leading up to the trip out to Germany, the exhibition hanging activity, what the exhibition looks like, the opening and home

again. I thought that you might like to see some of the photographs from the exhibition itself and I will try to post some fairly regularly for you to see.

Artwork by Kate Green, Sarah Wood & Lucille Carter

Last but not least, we now have deposits on 21 pictures of the pictures in the exhibition.

The first Monday of the Palmengarten exhibition

October 27, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

The van was returned to Portsmouth, but this time trains didn’t connect, so I followed Robin in the car. Our drive now only contains our car. The bedrooms are reclaimed, the mess has yet to be cleared up – until we get unsold pics back in a months time.

Up until close of play yesterday, 17 deposits have been made on botanical art pictures painted by SBA members and associate members. Although not necessarily photos of the pictures mentioned above, I am attaching some photos of pictures from the exhibition as they hang in the Palm House at Palmengarten.

Please enjoy.

Digitalis purpurea - watercolour - Gael Sellwood SBA — Digitalis purpurea – watercolour – Gael Sellwood SBA

Colchicum autumn ale - watercolour - Charlotte Linder SBA — Colchicum autumnale – watercolour – Charlotte Linder SBA

Lonicera periclymenum - pen & ink and coloured pencil - Rachel Munn SBA — Lonicera periclymenum – pen & ink and coloured pencil – Rachel Munn SBA

Fragaria x ananassa - watercolour- Yvonne Glennister Hammond SBA CPGFS — Fragaria x ananassa – watercolour- Yvonne Glennister Hammond SBA

Saturday after Palmengarten opening

October 26, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I am writing this on Sunday as by the time we got home last night I was thoroughly exhausted. We spent 13 hours travelling between Frankfurt and our home in Bosham. We were in an empty van – except for suitcases and some bubble wrap. I didn’t feel 100% when we started, but I could not understand why I was getting worse during the journey – until we put two and two together.

Robin and I were obviously very tired as a result of the hard physical work last week, but as the van was empty it was rolling around a lot. It is not like me to not to want to eat, and Robin wasn’t much better either although he was doing the driving and holding onto the wheel all the time. For any of you who picked up the tweet yesterday, I took one picture of the foggy driving conditions. It was not a nice journey.

However, whilst on the road I did get a message that we had three further deposits for pictures yesterday. That I felt was brilliant news. Today I picked up a message on the SBA Facebook page that someone there had seen a German newspaper with information about the exhibition from the 76 SBA artists and mentioning in particular two of the pictures.

I am going to attach five pictures here. Three about the journey home and both pictures mentioned in the German newspaper yesterday.

Parked outside the hotel in Frankfurt & ready to leave.

Gloriosa sp. (Glory Lily) in Coloured pencil by Sue Henon

Brassica oleracea var. itlaica (Savoy Cabbage) in watercolour by Gaynor Dickeson

End of first day’s play!

October 24, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I am very happy to say that by the end of the exhibition’s first day at Palmengarten, we’ve taken a deposit for 10 pictures!

I am really pleased about this. All the months of organising, receiving botanical art pictures, delivering and hanging them in Palmengarten’s Palm house, has really resulted in a lovely exhibition. Already a lot of people have been to see it and have been duly impressed. Congratulations to all the artists and others who helped to make it happen.

The exhibition of SBA members and associate members paintings will be on in Palmengarten for a further month. Therefore if you have the opportunity, please go and see it.

Our SBA member living in Germany will be manning the exhibition throughout and we all owe her a debt of thanks for giving up so much of her time for the benefit of our members.

Robin and I are driving back home with the van tomorrow. Hopefully it will be uneventful. The weather will certainly not be like it was a week ago when we had 26 degrees. Today it was down to 12 degrees. We are definitely into Autumn.

One of the things that I regret this time, is that the hanging team were so busy hanging and organising the exhibition overall, that we didn’t even get time to walk round the gardens in daylight – as we have done on previous occasions. But, hopefully we will get more opportunities in two years time.

Finally, a picture of Karin Wittstock, Sue Henon and Me( with Robin behind the camera), about to put our feet up with a lovely cup of tea and a delicious German cake!

Opening day of the Palmengarten/ SBA botanical art exhibition.

October 24, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Quickly rushing over the first part of the day except to say that Ian Coulson and Robin Dickeson quickly took over doing the finishing touches to all of the SBA pictures. They took on cleaning and polishing the glass for every single picture, straightened up the pictures, hid tags and hanging wires etc. additionally they hung all the framed information that told visitors about the SBA.

What did the rest do? We did all the other bits and pieces necessary to make sure the exhibition was ready for this evenings opening.

The opening went perfectly and a lot of people came to it. I won’t go into guest lists or speeches, but the emphasis definitely was on ‘what is botanical art and how is it done?’

I was really pleased to see other SBA members supporting the opening and even a botanical artist I had met at the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, USA last year. This world is small!

Photos, including ones of the first pictures sold today.

Demonstration at Society of Floral Painters in Chichester

June 2, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Following a lot of preparation on composing and drawing a new botanical art picture, I spent the day starting the watercolour painting as a demonstration for the SFP.

The day dawned sunny and warm; the first nice day for a while. Watching the weather forecast as I write this, it reverts to cooler and wetter weather for a few days! Has spending the day inside demonstrating botanical art been worth it?

I am told that the SFP exhibition at the Oxmarket in Chichester, has attracted a lot of visitors. Visitors who I spoke with today, found the exhibition to be very interesting and many were amazed at the variety of floral painting; from very loosely painted Irises in oil, through the tighter botanical art, to strict botanical illustration. There is something there for everyone.

From previous experience, I knew that even though warm outside it can be cool sitting and demonstrating. I was well prepared. We didn’t have huge numbers of visitors and I am told that Sundays do not seem to attract the crowds. However there were quite a few people interested in my demonstration and I was able to talk a little of what I was doing.

The following is pictures from today finishing off with what I have done so far. The plant is a Mandeville, or Dipladenia.

Tomorrow I will be catching up:
– with London Art College assignment marking;
– preparation for the exhibition in Palmengarten Botanical gardens in Frankfurt, Germany. A joint exercise between Palmengarten and the SBA. My husband and I receive botanical art from across the UK and take it over to Frankfurt in October for the exhibition;
– preparation for the Garden Show at Stansted House (http://www.thegardenshowonline.com/gardenshow_stansted/) this coming FRiday, Saturday and Sunday. We have a stand there for the first time. Do come and support us. I intend to demonstrate some more.

Demonstrating colour pencil in botanical art at Oxmarket, Chichester, tomorrow

May 24, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I have mentioned before that at the moment the Society of Floral Painters (SFP) has their annual floral painting exhibition in the Oxmarket Centre for Arts in Chichester. Tomorrow I will be there demonstrating the use of coloured pencil. I will be there from 11:00 until 16:30 – except for lunch.

Do come and see what I am doing. I will have a similar picture in Watercolour as an interesting comparison. The flower is the Iris that I have been doing for just over a week in between all the other mad things I’ve been doing. This is how it looks now.

In between botanical art demonstrations.

May 23, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Following my botanical art demonstration at Westminster Central Hall during the SBA exhibition, I have hardly done any painting until today.

We had a few days good weather last week, so I did some much needed weeding in the garden. My husband and I also sorted what vegetables were to go into our new raised beds in the kitchen garden (he did the work). And I spent one day colour matching on Photoshop two pictures that I have just had framed. One is of Hellebore heads and the other was the large Hydrangea head in black and white.

I also had to mount some prints in preparation for the Society of Floral Painters (SFP) exhibition in Chichester handing in was on Monday and I was on one of the two assessment teams.

The arrangement of teams was quite impressive. The SFP is Floral and not necessarily botanical. I am strictly botanical, and as a counter balance, one artists paints very loosely and the third member is in between. In this way we got quite a good selection of paintings.

Once all the pictures had gone through the selection process, we were again divided into teams to hang the pictures. My husband had been a runner during the morning session and was also now hanging the pictures. In the end the SFP committee thought they would to adopt him!

Hanging the pictures lasted two days with the opening on Tuesday evening. Do go and visit the Oxmarket Art Centre in Chichester. It is a good exhibition and there is something there to suit all artistic tastes, as long as it is in relation to the kingdom of plants.

I am demonstrating coloured pencil and botanical art this first Sunday between 11:00 and 16:30. Do come and watch and ask questions if there is something you would like to know. I will be demonstrating again the following Sunday 1 June, but this time watercolour. Other artists will be demonstrating other techniques whilst the exhibition is on. Have a look at my website http://www.gaynorsflora.com/page12.htm for the address, dates and times of the exhibition.

On Wednesday my husband and I drove up to London to collect pictures following the SBA exhibition at Westminster and to attend the AGM meeting. One of the topics was the exhibition that the SBA are providing pictures for at Palmengarten, Frankfurt in October. We are both heavily involved with collecting the pictures from across the UK and getting them to Frankfurt. But more about that at a later stage. But we managed to start the collection of paintings during the AGM. We are off to a good start.

Today was my usual weekly class and since then I have been painting.

Do you remember the Irises that I did in watercolour and then demonstrated in coloured pencil at Westminster? I have continued with that today and will be using the same to demonstrate on Sunday. I think I have been doing myself a disservice in trying to keep it true to the watercolour as it is quite different to the iris I am now painting from. I’m tying myself up in knots.

This is it so far. The completed watercolour one first followed by the very incomplete coloured pencil one.

Today at the SBA exhibition at Westminster

May 13, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

It has been a long day but a very good one.

We took the 2hour train journey up to London today in time to start demonstrating when the exhibition opened at 11:00. I had hardly time to get out my equipment – let alone sit down, before keen botanical artists arrived to watch me demonstrating.

As planned, I took out the Watercolour of the Irises to use as my subject for the coloured pencil demonstration. Luckily I had managed to get a bunch of Irises in the way through Victoria Railway Station that was exactly the same colour as the original irises. I now had both the irises as a suitable botanical subject and the completed watercolour painting,

At any one time there were quite a few people sitting or standing to take in the demo. The actual demo went very slowly as everyone had so many questions about the technique. This meant that apart from a lot of talking, I also showed people how to do several different techniques associated with coloured pencil. I am told that they found this interesting and useful.

Apart from anything else, I hope that I have encouraged those who had some interest in botanical art, to try it; or those who have only used watercolour to have a go with coloured pencil.

I met several people who had been to the RHS botanical art exhibition in April and who had seen me and/or the crab apple exhibit. In some instances the exhibit seems to have encouraged people to come to watch the demo today. I hope it was worth it. It definitely was for me as I met so many lovely people.

My husband took the following picture this afternoon when there were fewer people watching.

This second picture shows two of my pictures hung at the exhibition in the black and white section. They are of course in pen & ink. Additionally you will find two further coloured pencil pictures exhibited.

Tomorrow I will be teaching a class in the morning and marking assignments from the London Art College after this is finished. I doubt that I will have time to do any painting for myself, so the coloured pencil irises will have to wait. A shame as I have the right colour ones for the moment!

GAYNOR'S FLORA

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