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

The Contemporary Craft Festival 2016 - Favourites Part 1

A couple of weekends ago I visited the Contemporary Craft Festival, in Bovey Tracey which I visited last year, and posted about here. Here are a collection of my favourite artists and designers and their work. You can find out more about the festival and all the artists here.

Ceramics

Kate Evans Ceramics 
Kate creates beautiful porcelain vases inspired by nature and plants, having a background in gardening.  I enjoyed the simplicity of her designs.

 

Elaine Bolt Ceramics
Elaine creates hand-thrown ceramic objects and vessels in porcelain, terracotta and mixed media. Her use of everyday and found objects in her work gives it a unique quality, as though it is telling a story.

Katherine Lees Ceramics

Katherine makes porcelain vessels and jewellery, and then she screen prints directly onto the clay surface. Katherine says: "The decoration adorning the surface of the vessels is inspired by the cabinets of curiosities popular in the Victorian Era. I am fascinated by the forms they contained and the way they were labelled and categorised." Her work really reminds me of old ceramic medicine bottle that you sometimes find at flea markets, but much more refined and beautiful. 

Printmaking

Robin Mackenzie

Robin is an illustrator and printmaker whose work I greatly admire! I love woodcut printing and how the medium gives a pleasant old-fashioned feel, mostly because the techniques and materials are the same ones that have been used for centuries. Robin's colourful reduction linoprints depict everything from scenic countryside to industrial cityscapes.

 

Jess Davies

Jess is a talented printmaker and member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen who uses a variety of printmaking techniques such as Lino printing and Etching. You can see the landscape of the Devon countryside has much influence on Jess' work.

Lucy Gell

Another artist who uses a variety of printmaking techniques is Lucy Gell, who creates humourous and fun animal prints. Some of Lucy's techniques include Collograph printing, Acid plate etching and Monoprinting. I really like the humourous style of Jess's work, it really made it stand out for me.

Richard Shimell

Richard uses lino or soft flooring material to create his prints. I really admire the detail and texture within his work, I think it is quite difficult to get such detail with lino prints! I always end up chopping through bits that I wanted haha. Richard lives on the edge of Dartmoor and the influence of the surroundings is clearly evident within his work.

 

 

Recent trip to Eden Project and new camera pics

I visited the Eden Project to take part in a Botanical Painting 3 day course (will post about that soon) whilst there I took some photos with my newly acquired camera, Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II. It was an ideal place to test it out with a wealth of beautiful flowers and plants.

Beautiful Ranunculus Flower

Echeveria Succulent Plant, I love its geometry.

Climbing Sorrel (Begonia Glabra)

Just love the contrast of this lime and purple foliage

Mysore Clock Vine Flower

Another lovely Orange Ranunculus

Pink Ranunculus Flower with white Ranunculus

Close up macro Pink Ranunculus

Roul Roul birds enjoying a puddle bath

Another lovely contrast between Purple tulip and mint coloured leaves

Some fancy Tulips!

Camellia and Chrysanthemum Flower Screen Prints

My latest Screenprints are of a pretty Camellia and Chrysanthemum flowers in full bloom, in the style of vintage botanical drawings. I used a bright crimson ink for the petals which contrasts with two shades of green for the stem and leaves, and a delicate grey for the darker areas. I found the original drawings in a children's annual, and had quite a job to create the colour separations for the actual screen prints. I am used to drawing and tracing things using vectors in Illustrator, but for these I had to remind myself how to use Photoshop to separate out the right bits but I got there in the end!
I hope you like the results.

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.