Three weeks until the RHS botanical art exhibition

March 16, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

How am I doing? Will I be finished in time?

These of course are the questions I am asking myself and I imagine are the same questions for those who follow the blog.

Preparing for the RHS botanical art show which will happen in London 11 – 12 April, with preview on the evening of the 10th, has taken three years. The work is almost finished. Believe it or not.

I have finished painting each of the six pictures. I have only painted the necessary six and I haven’t painted a 7th as a reserve in case one wasn’t up to scratch ( I was advised to do this – in case). The frames are made and all that remains is working up the digital images for printing plus writing the information to hang with the pictures.

Matching the colours exactly is a hugely time consuming exercise. I prefer to do this myself unless the picture is too big for the equipment I have. As having the correct colours to reflect my subject is important for my painting, I am a perfectionist in matching the colours in Photoshop.

The last bit of work will be to research further the six Malus plants I have painted and write some information about each of them.

Three weeks is not long. The sun is shining, the garden and gardening await and May this year will be very busy with exhibitions. But, the RHS exhibition is the most important having taken three years to prepare.

Breath!

Finishing off Hellebores for 2014

March 4, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I have talked about Hellebores for such a long time this year as they started off flowering early and I was afraid there wouldn’t be much left by the time the workshop came about. Well as you know, they are still strutting manfully in the garden – even with all this rain.

Before I started painting botanically, I never thought that the winter could produce so much beauty. Now I emphasise these magnificent blooms in the garden.

Before going back to talking about the RHS exhibition and how that is going, and the subject of the next workshop, I thought I would include a few of the Hellebores that I have done. There is only one this year, but as you may now know (for those who follow the blog), some of my pictures can take several weeks to do.

RHS exhibition: 10 weeks to go!

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

The weather isn’t getting any easier yet, in fact, today whilst painting in my shed I got quite scared. That is not me! The sun had been shining, but a large cloud was beginning to darken the sky. Suddenly it started blowing so much that the shed was actually shaking. I have never experienced that before. Even the cats sat up and took notice.

I am ploughing on with the pictures for the RHS exhibition in London in April. I now have the Malus Everest picture finished – I think. I have used exactly the same type of dissections for this painting as the other one. You saw the longitudinal section of the last picture. Guess what this is. You know which crab apple this is, so try and see which part it is.

All the pictures are being done in coloured pencil. I had thought to do the dissections in graphite, in the same way as in other illustrative paintings. However, I have chosen to continue them in colour in this series of paintings.

RHS exhibition: twelve weeks to go!

January 15, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I have my work cut out to get my six pictures ready for the RHS botanical art exhibition during the Orchid show in April.

The series of six crab apple trees is well on the way. The apples are painted in all six pictures. I have done all the sketches and colours for the blossom ( done two years ago); all the sketches for my dissections were done last year; all of the apple dissections are sketched and ready to go. It is now a matter of putting it altogether in the finest detail and with my best techniques.

I have just completed the first picture. It is the Malus ‘ gorgeous’. I will give you a little glimpse at the end, but to see the completed picture I will encourage you to come to the RHS exhibition itself.

I will ask for one bit of help though. I need to include the Latin names for each of my apples and I can’t find all of them. If you know them, please let me know. The pictures will be, M. Gorgeous, M. Golden hornet, M. Evereste, M. Red sentinel, M. Red jade, & M. John Downey.

I’m afraid that this photo is not too brilliant – a little dark. Even more reason to see it in real life. Just pray I get all the pictures finished and retaining a good standard.

First botanical art workshop in 2014, 16-17 January

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

Happy New year and plenty of botanical art.

I have two workshops in January, in Bosham Nr. Chichester. The first is ‘Colour mixing in Botanical art with Coloured pencil’ and the second is the same theme only using watercolour.

The first workshop is for anyone interested in working with coloured pencil if they already do so, or they would like to learn. Therefore it will be a good one both for new beginners and experienced.

We have all had the same problem now and again haven’t we, that we just can’t mix the right colour ? Well this workshop will be focusing on how to get it right. Getting the right depth of colour with coloured pencil is a matter of mixing the colours optically on the paper. We don’t always have the right colour to hand and, if we did, it is likely to be flat and boring without depth to it. Come and learn how to do it.

Thursday and Friday 16-17 January between 10:00-16:00. Get in touch via my website gaynorsflora.com. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

This is a snippet from that on which I am working towards the RHS exhibition in April. It is in coloured pencil:

Do you use photographs in botanical art?!!!!

October 18, 2013April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Yes. Sort of.

Some of my paintings take around two years to complete especially if I am doing a series of paintings and they include; A year in the life of………

How do you complete a series of paintings if the series is from the same genus and they bloom and fruit at similar times?

This is how I do some of it. As an example I will use the picture that I have been working on this week. Malus Gorgeous.

In the spring last year I did some sketches, colour detail and size of the blossom. I had to do five other crab apple trees at the same time and, during a ten-day period. This year I did dissections of blooms from the same trees and preparation sketches of the dissections to include in the pictures.

Going back to the Malus Gorgeous specifically, this summer I planned the composition and sketched this out on my final paper. I used elements from various pictures I had taken of the small tree. Bearing in mind that the apples were not full size and far from ripe and the finished painting was to include ripe fruit. The photographs were and are only a rough guide. This is the photograph I used for the main bunch of fruit.

I had to enlarge the fruit slightly to the size they were likely to be when ripe, allowing for the fact that even this allowance might be slightly out. I had measured the ripe fruit the previous year so had a good idea of the size. I then started painting the leaves.

I picked the leaves I intended to paint, one at a time. None of them the ones in the photo. Some were more interesting than others, but I had to make sure that the leaves I picked were the ones arising from the fruit spur. These were the type I had included in my picture, and not those born on new shoots, as these are more leathery and differ quite a bit.

I positioned each leaf as I had sketched it in my composition and painted it into the picture until most of the leaves were in place.

I have been doing the same with the apples. These are this years ripe apples. They have started falling off the branches, therefore I had to get on and paint them whilst I could – particularly if I wanted the series finished to exhibit at the RHS next year. That is if I get exhibition space.

Funnily enough and, luckily, the apples seem to last different lengths of time on the trees. But there isn’t much in it, so I have to plough on until all the apples are finished.

Some of the pictures of the apples being painted – with coloured pencil used dry in case anyone was wondering.

Today I managed to do all the apples. I have a couple more leaves to do and then have the dissections and branches to put in the picture. But that won’t happen yet as I have to catch up on all six pictures. The sketches Of the dissections that I have in my sketchbook will give me enough information to do this at a later time. Don’t forget that once everything is in place it has to be tied together with shadows etc in the right places.

As you see I do use photographs in botanical art, but every element in my pictures are painted from life.

By the way, comments or queries are very welcome.

My sketchbook page.

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.

Pictures for RHS 2014

March 14, 2013April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

Since I last updated about the RHS prep, I have gone as far as I can on the picture I was painting at the time. I won’t be saying which species of Crab apple I am painting as hopefully I will awaken your interest enough to come to the exhibition next year.

The last picture I started was painted using sketches, photographs and detailed paintings I had done during the season. It depicted the apples and leaves fairly late in the season. Some of the leaves fairly past their best – but interesting.

I managed to do some fairly detailed sketches of the flowers last year, but need to wait until we are in the new season to dissect the flowers. Once that is done I will be able to put the picture together fully.

The new picture I have started is also based on sketches, paintings and photos taken previously. However, this one took three days to work out the design, fine tune and get transferred onto the paper to paint. So far I have struggled with a few leaves and a couple of apples, but I don’t feel it is going at all smoothly. Should I have started again?

It’s funny to think that I took three days to compose and put together the outline for a composition, but with my workshops, I have to encourage people to use at least 1/2 day to do the same!

Subject for next RHS submission

October 19, 2011April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

As a botanical artist, I have been thinking about what subject to illustrate for the next time I submit my work to the RHS. Having won a silver for my Magnolia series in March this year, I want to choose a subject that is likely to earn me an additional medal. As Wisteria flowered not long after the exhibition, I had thought about plants from the Pea family, then seeing red berries from one of the Nightshade family (Solanum) in the hedgerows, I thought of doing that. I am in the middle of one botanical watercolour painting (Solanum dulcamara), but they have quite a sprawling habit and therefore a painting needs to show this.

We have four crab apple trees in our garden and three of them are heavily laden this year. They too make a good subject. I would have to find four more trees though to make the series of eight.

Today, I have been doing drawings, making colour samples and taking pictures of the fruit and leaves, so that I have something to start with. Hopefully I can add the flowers and young spring leaves to the preparatory work next year. I might do this series in colour pencil.

This means that in fact I have some material already on the go to do two separate series. I wonder which one will get there first?

GAYNOR'S FLORA

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

RHS prep