Botanical art

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Change of Date for a Botanical art workshop

| Gaynor's Flora

I’m afraid I still have no new painting at the moment as I am writing, writing, writing – with of course a load of research in the middle. There is a lot going into this new online course I am doing, but I am really happy that several people have agreed to allow me to show their work as well.

I feel it is so important to let people know that there are so many styles of botanical art and so many ways of getting to where you want to go with it. Other artists have been really helpful in this and some have even offered to write bits about what they think is important in the style of work they do, to go into the course.

Anyway, Robin and I were checking dates in our diaries the other day and as I want to go to the ASBA conference in Pittsburgh this year, I have had to make a change to one of the workshops in October. This is the link: Botanical art workshops 2016

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A new Youtube video

| Gaynor's Flora

Happy New Year!

What have  I been doing of late? You probably think that I haven’t been doing anything at all – but I have been working on my new online botanical art course. Poor Robin, he hardly sees me these days!

For those of you living in the UK you know that the weather has been very mild – and very wet. I live on the south coast and although we haven’t suffered the same floods as further north, it has been wet. All the plants in the garden are in turmoil. Everything is sodden and the cats leave muddy paw prints everywhere – they get the blame as they can’t answer back! A lot of the daffodils have finished flowering and if we get some cold weather now, goodness knows what will happen to those in bud.

IMG_3249We spent Christmas in Norway and had a really super time with my daughter (the hostess) and my son. We even got some lovely snow there – which was refreshing. we enjoyed some very special Norwegian food such as Lutefisk, had a Norwegian Christmas Eve supper of delicious cod and an English Christmas Day meal of Roast pork with all the trimmings. My children are fantastic cooks; they obviously felt they had to learn as I am such a bad cook.

We came back home before the new year to see the Hellebores, Daffodils and Snowdrops in full flower! Starting on the watercolour module of my online botanical art course, I therefore had plenty of subjects to paint from. I chose the Hellebore after picking off a live caterpillar! Several of the flowers had their stamens chewed right off. I’ve pulled this picture off the video, so it isn’t too clear. I wish I had taken a picture of the caterpillar too.

Hellebore chewed
From painting the Hellebore I have done a whole series of videos for the course right from : Stretching light to medium weight watercolour paper (I hope you find it useful), sketch to line drawing, colour matching, tracing over to art paper, tonal value reference study to actually painting the picture. All of the videos are on Youtube, but only the one about stretching paper is available to the public. The rest will only be available to students doing the course, although I am considering doing a very fast one showing the painting. I still have a load of writing to do yet, so I will see how it goes.

I may not be keeping up too well with my own artwork, but I am keeping my hand in when doing the videos.

The December Hellebore

 

Hellebores, snowdrops and daffodils in December!

| Gaynor's Flora

I haven’t quite finished sending out all my Christmas wishes yet, but this is intriguing. 

I had my last botanical weekly art class of the year today. Everyone was sort of winding down and when I went down to the shed with my eye half on all of the things I still haven’t sorted in the garden, I saw all of the above flowers, plus a lot more. One of my students was looking for something to do on this last day so she chose………

 If you can’t quite make out what she is doing it is this:

   But she could have chosen any of the above, or even Primroses, daisies, geraniums, periwinkle or even snapdragons. What a strange year! I just hope that there are some Hellebores and Snowdrops left for the workshop in February.

New botanical art YouTube video – Pen & ink technique

| Gaynor's Flora

I am developing an online botanical art course using written guidelines, links to good support subjects, diagrams, photos and videos showing techniques. I will also discuss the materials you might wish to use. But have a look on this website under Tuition and you can read a little more about it.

In the process of writing the course I have been filming work as I do it and making videos from the material. The course will include several detailed videos with accompanying written information to make sure that the techniques are understood.

The videos posted already have been done ‘quick time’ so that you can see the effect of the process as the subject is developed. But in the course the videos are broken down into smaller bites so that each technique can be clearly seen. Although the ‘quick time’ videos are available on YouTube,  you will need to sign up for the course to see the full material.

Christmas will soon be upon us and no doubt there will be less time to do painting, drawing or writing for a couple of weeks. But I think you may hear from me at least one ore time before Christmas.

Before you go, do have a look at the latest YouTube video on the pen and ink technique that I use. How to draw a Himalayan seedpod with pen / ink

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A non-botanical watercolour

| Gaynor's Flora

I have finished the ‘quick’ watercolour for my daughter – her beautiful Russian Blue cat named ‘Tigger’. I think the original picture is better than this one, although I have spent all day on Photoshop adjusting colours and making one or two cards that will be in the post tomorrow!

In the meantime, please enjoy the scaled down version.

Tigger

Now, having used my brushes a little, I am returning to writing the online botanical art course I am in the process of developing. But whilst on the subject of botanical art tuition, I have vacancies on my workshop 29-30 January; Textures: Bark and Moss. Do get in touch, all the details and booking form are on the Workshops page, under Tuition.

Botanical art Autumn colour workshop had Autumn colours

| Gaynor's Flora

Isn’t it amazing what several people can do to make a botanical art workshop happen! I was worried as to whether the workshop would live up to its title as just about everything had fallen off the trees. Winter had come further than I thought it would.

But, everyone kept their eyes peeled and the majority came with subjects to paint themselves, or share with others. Wonderful.

About half of the students had been to one of my workshops before and the other half were new to me. I’m glad to say that the new students had been tempted to try by others recommendations. It was a lovely group of people and we kept the bitter cold out.

Firstly the group:

Searching for subjects?
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Hunting for subjects?
Hunting for subjects?

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You have to agree that although it was cold outside, the inside was full of warmth.

Don’t forget the Bosham Christmas Craft Trail next Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You will be very welcome.

Another successful botanical art pen & ink workshop in Bosham

| Gaynor's Flora

The last workshop was a week ago – pen and ink. I’m afraid I got carried away and forgot to get a few of the photo shots before people left. I now have all of them and can display them on the blog.

When you look at them, you must admit that they are good. All of the students were using this technique for the first time, therefore, not one of them was comfortable with it. It will be interesting to see if they enjoy the technique as much as I do, long term. I know I will be keeping my eyes open to what is produced in the future.

Do enjoy the photos.

By the way, I will be giving everyone who attends the summer workshop holiday in Norway, the option to learn the technique over a couple of days during that week. I will be taking the additional equipment necessary, with me. But just one more reason why you might decide to join the group for this holiday! Do sign up.

Poppy seed case, inititial thumbnails to rough tonal value sketch
Physalis bracts, early in process
Teasel leaves – very clingy (sharp bits)
Poppy seedcase
Teasel leaves
Finished physalis bracts
Himalayan Lilly seedpods

Of course the class working. They concentrated  hard on this workshop, but it was worth it.

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A new botanical art video: How to draw a Poppy seedcase in graphite

| Gaynor's Flora

In actual fact, I ought to make a correction to the above title straight away; its How I draw a poppy seedcase in graphite.

Since we came back from Italy, I have been chasing my tail as usual. But there is a result, so the time wasn’t wasted.

I’m in the process of writing a new, online botanical art course starting off with graphite, moving to pen & ink and then either watercolour or coloured pencil (one or the other – the choice being the student’s). I have put a lot of work into the sections I have done so far and knowing that different people learn in different ways, I have thought a lot about this quite a bit.

My husband has been a beautiful model in some sections so that I have been able to explain in words and show in photographs, different techniques. That is the reading and seeing bit. But then we have audio input too, and that is where videos come in.

Some of the videos I have done so far are very short and will not be available unless through the course, but today I have actually finished one that shows how I do a botanical graphite drawing from line drawing to finished piece.

This is the finished artwork – only small and as yet I haven’t really found a title for it other than Poppy seedcase. But if you have some imaginative titles, please give me a prod. At the moment I am a little brain dead!

 

Poppy seedcase in graphite
Here is the link to the YouTube video. Comments are welcome: How to draw a Poppy seedcase in graphite. By the way, does anyone know the name of the species? It is rather unusual in that it doesn’t have the typical pepper-pot top. Apparently, the seeds remain within the capsule and it is a species that is collected as a source for poppy seed in cooking. I was told its name, but I didn’t make a note of it.