I am having kittens! I have changed the plot again.
I spent yesterday afternoon and evening and this morning going in one direction with the information sheets. Now I have changed the whole idea of what I want to do. I think I am going nuts and I’m afraid I won’t get it done.
I suddenly thought that I needed to get the order of pictures sorted out before I did anything else. I took a video of the setup but it won’t download into WordPress and I can’t take the time to find out how to do it at the moment. But when it is set up in the Lindley Hall in London on Wednesday I will take some pictures for you.
I have done some of the laundry as I said I would do, but once I got it on the line it started raining. One thing after the other.
I went to pick up some exhibiting materials for the open studios we are having at the beginning of May. But that is another story.
Today I am going to show Malus x atrosaguinea ‘Gorgeous’. Remember the series is all coloured pencil. It is a really beautiful apple and quite a small tree, but the crab apples are quite large. This is the flower to start off with.
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As a botanical artist I would much prefer to paint or draw, than anything else. But my husband reminded me that in whatever you choose to do, there are always some aspects of it you would prefer not to spend too much time on.
I enjoyed getting all the information together for the six crabapple pictures in preparation for the RHS exhibition; I enjoyed the sketching, the planning, the study and drawing using a microscope and then getting down to the actual painting. But, I haven’t enjoyed the last couple of weeks quite so much. I feel as though I am stuck behind the computer with no way to turn.
The colour matching of the pictures is now completely finished and I am satisfied with the results. What am I doing now?
I am going through all the information that I have on the crabapples – individually and generically. I realise that in some areas I might need slightly more information as some aspects of what I have found out can be confusing. I need to put it into a simple format so that people can cast their eyes over it quickly and learn something new. I have started writing a bit about the crabapples in general. All that I have gleaned is interesting, but hopefully people will want to spend more time on the artwork than the writing. I suppose this means me spending ages on this to sift out unnecessary stuff.
A week from now and I will know how I have done. I have asked before if you will either keep your fingers crossed for me or, preferably pray. I just hope that I have enough time to get all that I want to do – done.
Now a glimpse of the ‘John Downey’ crabapples.
Malus x sylvestris ‘John Downey’, in Coloured pencil
For anyone who might just be picking up on this for the first time; for the last three years I have been preparing six pictures to exhibit at the next RHS Botanical art exhibition. It is to be held in London at the RHS’s Lindley Hall, 11-12 April.
The pictures are of six different crabapples, Malus ‘Red Jade’, Malus ‘Evereste’, Malus x robusta ‘Red Sentinel’, Malus x atrosanguinea ‘Gorgeous’, Malus x zumi ‘Golden Hornet’. Each of them are in coloured pencil and are of ripe crabapples, dissected crabapples, crabapple blossom, Longitudinal section of the flower, enlarged stamen, style & stigma and a transverse section of the ovary. Each picture basically shows in detail the times when people are most interested in the life of a crabapple tree.
Normally one sees the tree covered with blossom later on in April to early May and the next time one is interested is when the tree is covered with red or yellow apples. But do people really look at the trees, the blossom or the apples? Very rarely. For example, they assume that the blossom is the same on each tree. But they are very different.
I wanted to show the beauty of the trees right down to the detail. But I also wanted to create beautiful pictures of the whole works. Obviously it is up to those who view the pictures as to whether I have succeeded or not. It will also be up to the judges at the RHS as to whether I get a medal or not.
The judging is carried out by the picture committee and these include botanical artists, botanists, and photographers. They have extremely strict criteria and I will be judged on my worst picture. This means that they are not only judging for correctness of botanical detail, but also how I use the medium I have chosen, the composition, the information I have provided in and with the picture, and the way I have presented the exhibit. They want to see that my work is consistent and that is why the worst picture is judged: Bearing in mind, no picture is ever 100% perfect!
Today I have had to re-do one of the pictures for colour matching in Photoshop. I discovered this morning (after I had spent all morning teaching), that one of the pictures was incorrectly colour matched. Why do I need this? I will be using segments of the pictures (as I have shown you in the blog) to provide further information about each each picture at the exhibition. Additionally, I will be able to get gicleé prints from these – although that is of lesser importance at the moment.
It is now dark, so I will have to wait until tomorrow to see if I have succeeded with this or not. In the meantime, I am getting as much information as possible about the crabapples I have chosen. And now, a glimpse of the next picture, the M. John Downey. Now these are very different to the M. Red Jade, M. Evereste and M. Red Sentinel that you have seen in earlier blogs – aren’t they?
Malus x sylvestris ‘John Downey’ blossom- in coloured pencil
Time is going very quickly at the moment. The sun is shining beautifully again today and it is warm. The cats have taken shelter in the shed with me.
I am searching for any morphological information about crabapples to use in my signage. But I am finding little. Perhaps because I’m not looking in the right place with the right keywords. Any help would be gratefully received!
This is a very short blog, but it includes a little taster of the Malus Red Sentinel picture. The dissections. I noticed that the Crab apples looked rather brown on the blog yesterday, although in reality they are a beautiful red with some pink glimpses and some orangey colours.
We have had a lovely weekend in relation to the weather. The sun has been shining and it has been a lovely temperature. I have been in the shed except for during Sunday lunch yesterday – which was Mothering Sunday.
My neck and shoulders are getting to me and I am a day later than I planned. I have actually finished doing the colour matching except for one or two tweaks.
The garden is beginning to look quite spring-like. Although we had some mild weather when the Magnolia started flowering, we had a cold blast which turned it off white. It is still going strong, but there are a lot of tepals lying on the ground now.
The Camellia have been flowering, but the cold blast sent the white ones brown and the red ones brown-tinged. The tulips are fantastic and you already know that we have plenty of Daffodils and a few Jonquil.
The Malus Evereste has now got tight flower buds on it. Can you imagine that the season is starting all over again?
I showed you the flower of the Malus Red Sentinel last time. Now I will show you the apples.
As with all the crab apple pictures, this too is in coloured pencil.
Time is running away from me! Most of the week that has gone by I was teaching – and enjoying it. But that means that preparation for the RHS exhibit has been left to one side. Today I am back doing the colour matching with Photoshop.
But before I show you a snippet from the next finished picture, I will show you one resulting from last week’s workshop.
I am not sure if it is fortunate or unfortunate, but every time I teach I want to do some of what the students are doing. I always need to demonstrate techniques anyway and I am often left with a half finished small picture – depending upon how many there are in the class. In fact, I often find that I continue to work on what I’ve started into the evening. My poor husband!
If it is a full class, then all my time is spent either demonstrating or going from person to person constantly. If it is a smaller class, I have to make myself look away from what they are doing so that they can actually start getting something wrong (but not too wrong). I find that if I hang over them too much, they don’t get a chance to do this and then they don’t learn. That is why I prefer to have several students at a time rather than a one-to-one. Although, for some people a one-to-one is essential.
These are Jonquil in graphite. It is a very small picture. I have been asked to give a small picture to a charity, so this will be it.
Jonquil flowers – graphite
But the next RHS picture ready is Malus Red Sentinel. I think that many people have this crab apple in their gardens as it is quite common. When my grandchildren were smaller they called it a ‘tomato tree’. If you have been following this blog, you will know that we now have several ‘tomato trees’.
Make a note of the new leaves on this crab apple. They often have a slight red tinge round the edge when new. The flowers are fairly simple showing up a pale pink. Although on a bright Spring day against a clear blue sky they look really exotic.
I have spent the day Photoshopping the Crab apple pictures and there is another glimpse at the end of this blog.
But this evening I was at a meeting with my Bosham artist colleagues. The Chichester open Studios art trail is during the first two weekends in May, this will include the bank holiday Monday.
In the beautiful village of Bosham lives a whole enclave of artists using different media. We are going to start the art trail a little early on Friday 2 May with a preview at each of the artist’s studios. This will be between. 17:00 to 20:00.
Hopefully, people living in the vicinity will get the opportunity to see what is on display in a relaxing environment. More about this soon.
Tomorrow and for a further two days, I will be teaching the workshop ‘From sketch to drawing – learn to draw botanical images’.
So many have problems with their initial drawings and plans for their botanical paintings. Unfortunately, it is often the case that one finds out by having experienced it, that the final painting will only be as good as the line drawing. Those on the workshop have already understood this and hope to improve their drawing skills.
I tried to prepare for today’s demonstration yesterday evening! I had some interesting assistance.
I decided to show how to do a couple of Magnolia x soulangeana blooms and prepared the outline drawing for today.
Today I had a lovely relaxing day with my husband as we drove to a little village just outside Salisbury where the Society of Floral Painters meeting was being held. A lot of people had turned up both to get advice about their own botanical art work and to watch the demos.
Coloured pencil work is fairly time consuming, so I didn’t get too far with painting the Magnolia, but I enjoyed the time showing the various techniques and answering all the questions fired at me. People there were obviously very interested and it was a very useful exercise – also for me. It is amazing how much one learns oneself when teaching!
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After the demo my husband treated me to a delicious lunch. What a lovely break for a few hours from the crab apple series. I did return to it when we eventually got home again.
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I seem to be spending every free minute on the Photoshop colour matching of the Crab apple botanical art series. But tomorrow I will be doing something else.
The Society of Floral Painters has asked me to do a coloured pencil demonstration at one of their meetings that is open to members and artists hoping to attain full membership in the society. It will be at Pitton Village Hall near. Salisbury, tomorrow between 10:00 – 14:00.
As the Magnolia x soulangeana is still in full flower, I have prepared a drawing to demonstrate this. It will be good to take my head away from the computer for a day.
Would you like to see part of the next picture finished? It is blossom on the Malus Evereste. Note how it differs from Malus Red Jade. The flower is slightly smaller than for the Red Jade, doesn’t have the stripey red on the petals and seems to have regular wrinkles along each petal. Although the Malus Red Jade apple is very small, the flowers are not so small.
GAYNOR'S FLORA 