Eden Project Botanical Illustation Course

Last week I attended a Botanical Illustation Course at the Eden Project. This was my second time doing a course there and this time it was a whole 5 days of drawing and painting, and learning a bit about plants.

The course started with us learning all about the different parts of plants and flowers to help make more informed drawings. We had tours of both the outside and tropical biomes from members of the horticultural team at Eden which were really interesting. 

We began the final piece by choosing something to draw, there were plenty of interesting plant materials to choose from, I chose this Globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus) because I love the colours and shape, plus I thought it would be achievable to complete a painting of this in the time. Next we made a scale drawing of the item, which we shaded in using graphite on some tracing paper. The original drawing was then transferred to the watercolour paper using tracing paper before being painted with watercolours.

Our teacher was the lovely Laura Silburn who is a botanical artist working in Cornwall, and a Fellow of the Eden Project Florilegium Society, whos beautiful paintings we were able to view at the end of the course.

My completed Artichoke botanical watercolour painting

Initial sketch of Artichoke

Dissecting a daffodil

Daffodil Ovary!

Our Paintings

My latest Cornwall Trip

I've collected a few pics I took whilst on holiday in Cornwall a few weeks ago.

 Loved the different textures in this pic, taken on my cliff walk from Polzeath, and the vivid orange of the Lichen.

 I photographed lots of coastal flowers and plants, which I plan to draw at some point!

 A selection of beautiful Dahlias from the collection at the Eden Project

I love the the beautiful leaves on these Succulents and how they grow out from the centre. 

 Adorable Tree Frog hiding amongst the leaves in the rainforest Biome

 The contrast of colour on the leaves of this plant really caught my eye.

 The ethereal beauty of the Sensitive plant's flowers 

A lovely mix of colourful wild flowers

 

 Lovely contrasting green and purple cabbages in the vegetable garden at the Lost Gardens of Heligan

 Not sure what flowers are but their colour and scale is stunning!

 Mud man at Heligan

Sunny Harlyn Bay on the final day.