watercolour

First botanical art picture accepted by Chelsea Physic Garden

| Gaynor's Flora

I am so excited. I got a letter in the post today to tell me that my first picture has been accepted by the Chelsea Garden Florilegium, without needing to be adjusted in any way. On top of that, the comments from the Kew Botanists who evaluated the work, were pretty good too – that made the acceptance even more special.

I applied to and was accepted as a member of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium in the middle of last year; full membership is limited making membership even more exciting. The intention of membership is to document all the plants that are in the Chelsea Physic Garden. As you can imagine, there are thousands, so it will take a long time.

For the privilege of being a full member, everyone is meant to submit a picture each year, of one of the plants in the garden. Of course, a plant needs to be chosen that is not already in the archives. As I became a member half-way through the year I was in reality excused from painting a picture until 2016, but those who know me know I like a challenge.

I painted the Fuchsia microphylla. As the name suggests the leaves are minuscule, as are the flowers, although I was surprised by the size of the fruit. Except for the pen & ink habit drawing, which is life-size, the rest of the painting is on a larger scale. Once the scale of anything is increased, the colours become much more intense. Anyone who has looked through a microscope to see the detail of grey-looking grass, will know how intense the multitude of colours is in reality. The Fuchsia microphylla was painted enlarged because it was so tiny and I wanted to convey its real beauty.

I have posted the picture before, but here it is again, now as part of the archives of the Chelsea Physic Garden.

Fuchsia microphylla from Chelsea Physic Garden, in watercolour with ink.
Fuchsia microphylla from Chelsea Physic Garden, in watercolour with ink.

Adjusted yesterday’s blog and next botanical art workshop.

| Gaynor's Flora

Yesterday’s blog was written at the end of a busy day – or at least in the middle of the night. I should have waited until I had been refreshed by a night’s sleep! My husband read it a short while ago and tried very diplomatically to tell me, that not all of it had read too well. I have therefore adjusted it to tell you that my ‘photographs’ were not good, but that the artwork was good. If you read last night’s version, please read it again.

I thought I might add a couple of pictures of lichen. If anyone knows what they are exactly, please let me know.

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The next botanical art workshop will be Friday to Sunday, 26 – 28 February. The title is White Snowdrops against dark Hellebores. Now it is anyones guess if either will still be flowering by then. They are both flowering well in the garden now (much too early) and the Magnolia soulangeana buds are bursting! I did a very quick tiny picture a couple of days ago, of Leucojum aestivum – commonly known as ‘Summer snowflake’!!!!There are loads out at the moment.

'Summer snowflake' - Leucojum aestivum. Watercolour over graphite.
‘Summer snowflake’ – Leucojum aestivum. Watercolour over graphite.

Whether the Hellebores and Snowdrops are flowering or not, there will still be loads to paint. Or why don’t you grab the opportunity to work on something in which you know you can improve? There are a few places available, so get in touch soon.

Botanical art workshop: Textures – bark and moss.

| Gaynor's Flora

In reality the workshop became textures , bark, lichen and leaves!

In the end, I felt it had been a very unusual workshop because four of the five students were coloured pencil artists and only one was a watercolour artist. Three of the CP students wanted to do graphite only instead of colour, to improve their tonal value skills as well as the use of graphite. The watercolour student wanted to improve ‘green’ skills. They were definitely students who knew what they wanted to do! Their intention was to improve various aspects of their skills in botanical art and it was such a pleasure – and honour to help them.

On the first day we focused a lot on preparation. This time we didn’t actually talk very much about composition, but we went through the first stages of drawing and making a rough tonal value reference drawing.

Lichen
Lichen
Broken piece of Birch
Broken piece of Birch
Drawing wood and lichen
Drawing wood and lichen
Drawing piece of wood found on the beach.
Drawing piece of wood found on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As well as the different drawing techniques, we also looked at light and shade forming a solid object, and mixing greens. Unfortunately not all of the photographs turned out too well, but I think you will appreciate some of the results anyway.

Dried oak leaves
Dried oak leaves
The piece if wood with lichen
The piece if wood with lichen

 

 

 

 

 

Of course the various types of lichen we had collected between us was worthy of more detailed investigation, so out came all the magnifying glasses and lenses that we could muster. The specimens were hugely intriguing and the colours definitely became accentuated when you see them in detail.

I was particularly pleased with the results and I am just sorry that the photograph of the CP picture did not do it justice. I’m afraid the light was failing when I took the picture, but the tiny detail of the lichen was actually very well done – and exhausting to do. It will obviously take time to finish that piece even though it is small. I hope that the artist will not lose patience with it and complete it at some point so that it can be shown again on the blog. I think the other photographs of the work have turned out reasonably well.

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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

 

The Tigger cards arrived with their rightful owner.

| Gaynor's Flora

Surprisingly, my daughter already has got the cards I sent to her of Tigger. She will have to wait to get the original until we see her at Christmas. She has done exactly what she wanted to do initially and that is to give a picture of Tigger to the Vet in Tønsberg as a thank you for saving him this autumn. Tønsberg, by the way, is in Norway and not far from Åsgårdstrand where we have the summer botanical art workshop holiday.

Back to the vet and Tigger, apparently he was so ill, that they downed tools and concentrated on him, also giving my daughter additional help when she was unable to get medication into him. When he eventually recovered, he actually walked home by the side of her – and he doesn’t like going out!

Helen has just sent this picture as she is about to post the card. Now you can guess that it is written in Norwegian, therefore most will not understand what it says. I just thought it looked rather sweet with Tigger seemingly peeping round the edge of of the card.

Tigger again

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.

The two last Botanical art Bosham workshops of 2015

| Gaynor's Flora

2015 is not over yet; we still have the rest of October, November and December. So much happens in the garden during this time as things switch off to rest and reconstitute themselves ready to spring open in all their glory next year.

Personally, I find that there is still so much out there that I want to paint. I used to think that it would be a time of rest for me too – not true. I still don’t have enough time to paint or draw the living three-dimensional plants onto my two-dimensional paper (or whatever it is I paint on).

I am in the process of putting together a botanical art workshop schedule for next year. I have just heard back from the hotel in Åsgårdstrand (where Edvard Munch had his studio), that they would love to have us again at the end of June 2016, so I can now get the rest of the schedule together and hopefully post it on my website during this coming week.

In the meantime, information about the two remaining Bosham botanical art workshops for 2015. There are only two vacant places for the ‘Stunning Pen & Ink’ workshop, Friday and Saturday 30-31 October. That is not this coming week, but the one after. If you are interested, do get in touch as soon as possible if you don’t want to be disappointed.

For the last 2015 botanical art workshop there is one vacant place; ‘All those stunning Autumn colours’, Friday to Sunday, 20-22 November. Again do get in touch.

Obviously the Pen & Ink workshop will just be pen & ink and I can supply you with the necessary equipment. The Autumn colour workshop can be in either watercolour or coloured pencil. The classes are kept small so that I can give appropriate help where necessary – as well as demonstrate both mediums.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Himalayan Lily in Pen & ink
Himalayan Lily in Pen & ink
‘Flowers from my Winter Garden’
‘Flowers from my Winter Garden’