Final day at Stansted and more

June 9, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I am so tired. Happy, but tired.

Today we had fantastic weather and loads of visitors. For me there continued to be a constant stream of botanical art interested people. So many to explain to about botanical art and illustration.

I wrote this on Sunday and then fell asleep! It was an interesting and rewarding three days which might even have benefits in relation to future work. I also managed to get a little done on the Irises picture in coloured pencil.

This week has been catching up on paperwork, gardening and more painting as I couldn’t bend any more. But now at least we can see the flowers for the weeds and overgrown Forget-me- nots.

Next week I have a three-day workshop called ‘How difficult can Roses be?’. The roses in the garden are now in full bloom smelling beautifully and ready to be painted. Luckily we have all sorts which will allow people of varying abilities and experience to get a good result.

But it is now only two weeks until my husband and I travel to Norway in preparation for the workshop there.

The irises so far.

2nd day at Stansted Park Garden Show

June 8, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

And the heavens opened!

We knew that today(well yesterday now), the weather had been forecast as very bad – although the forecast was changeable. We knew that during the night there might be downpours and several times during the day.

We woke up to a wet nose wanting food ( one of the cats). We noticed it was wet outside, but nothing undue. We were about to leave the house to get to Stansted House when the heavens opened and it poured.

Keep calm and collected as there is nothing that can be done about nature other than dress for the occasion. I donned a sweater, long raincoat and long wellies – as well as my jeans of course. We got to Stansted just as the rain was stopping ( about 1/2 hr after we left.home). We were greeted by a man singing wishful and happy, sunny songs.

By 11:00 the sun was breaking through and the sky rapidly became blue with the odd puffy white cloud. That was the weather state for the rest of the day. Beautiful!

We had a lot of very interested visitors to the stand and discussions ranged from the type of coloured pencil I was using, to the potential for taking part in a new project. Some exciting conversations!

A picture taken during today:

One more day to go. Do come and enjoy the atmosphere.

First day at Stansted Park Garden Show

June 6, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

What a lovely day. The weather was super- the sun shone all day, it was warm but not hot and there was a slight breeze.

The stand we have is just inside the Art and design marquis, so we had the benefit of fresh air coming in. I can imagine it might not have been so pleasant on a cooler day, but lovely just now.

As soon as the gates opened to the show, people streamed in and there seemed to be a constant flow of interested visitors during the whole day.

I had decided to demonstrate botanical art using coloured pencil. This worked out well and was obviously the right choice as it attracted quite a few people to the stand. I had loads of questions and this also meant that they looked a little more closely at the pictures than they might have done. I also found out that Irises are in fact a flower that is much appreciated.

This evening has been spent with stocking up again and now a very slightly earlier night than usual.

Stansted Park Garden Show – stand AD25

June 3, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

You are all invited to come to Stansted Park Garden Show. This a yearly show situated near Chichester. For those who love their gardens, this is the place.

I have a stand in the Art and Design Marquee – and I’m terrified! Not that there is anything to be terrified about.

I believe that I am the only botanical artist there although there will be a plenty of general art and design. But there will be plants and lots of them.

Summer still does not seem to have reached us yet. Chilly and cloudy with the occasional sun burst. But I am told from several sources in Norway that they have summer proper! I can’t wait for the workshop there in four weeks time.

In the meantime, I have again spent most of the day on the organisation, information, form design etc. for the SBA exhibition at Palmengarten. I think that so far I must have spent a week solid on this. The emails come in fast and furious following sending out an email to all members asking if they intend to submit. The response so far has been really good and today I got the instructions and forms finished off and sent to those thinking about exhibiting.

I managed to start painting at 17:00. Not much of the day left. My husband had got some more Irises for me to work on the Coloured pencil picture, so I did a little on that. By the way, I intend to work on the irises in coloured pencil and the Mandeville in watercolour, at the Stansted show. But it will be different days spent on each. I haven’t decided which days yet.

This is how far I have got with the Irises. I’m afraid the lighting was not very good for the photo, but it’s better than nothing.

Tomorrow will be the last weekly botanical art class until September. After which I will be packing things together to take to Stansted for setting up on Thursday.

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.

Botanical art workshop today – demo tomorrow.

June 1, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

The last day of this workshop was today. The sun shone for most of the say and obviously affected positively everyone in the room.

The workshop went well. The students seemed to be satisfied with both some of the things they had learnt, as well as what they achieved. To top it all we had a lot of fun. There seemed to be longish periods of almost silence, interspersed with hilarity.

A good workshop from the point of view of the tutor (me), but in the end everything depends on what the students got out of it.

Have a look at some of the results.

The next workshop is Tuesday 17th until Thursday 19th June and is all about beautiful roses. How difficult can they be? Not so difficult once you are given tips in what to look for in your subject; and how to translate this onto your paper. Do get in touch if you can join me.

But tomorrow I will be demonstrating at the Oxmarket Art Centre, for the Society of Floral Painters (SFP). This time I will be demonstrating watercolour.

Over the last three days whilst discussing composition and drawing, I started off my composition as an example for the students today and for the demo tomorrow. My next picture has taken three evenings to draw. It is a Mandeville plant. It is quite a complex composition because of the growing habit of the plant – which needs to be shown.

My students from the last few days all wanted to come back to Chichester to see the demo, but unfortunately live too far away to be able to drop in. I promised that I would use the blog to show them how the picture develops.

These are the the first two photos, but I am not sure whether you will see clearly enough the drawing in the first one. The second shot is the tonal under painting of a dying flower.

Hopefully one of the many buds will open tomorrow so that I can do one of the spectacular flowers.

Come and see the demo at the Oxmarket, Chichester 11:00 – 16:30.

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

Botanical art, illustration, artist, illustrator, teacher, workshops, classes

Demonstrations