Archive for category Subject: Botanical Illustration
Botanical Flowers in Watercolour (Ready to Paint) || Michael Lakin
Posted by henry in Author: Michael Lakin, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Search Press, Series: Ready To Paint, Subject: Botanical Illustration, Subject: Flowers on April 23, 2010
I think you could say that, with this really rather surprising addition, this imaginative series has come of age. Botanical illustration isn’t normally regarded as something for the beginner, and yet these books, with their pre-printed tracings, are surely firmly in that camp. Aren’t they? And yet this works, completely. The answer, I think is that there’s a degree of flexibility in the format and here it bridges the gap between the beginner and the intermediate painter and makes accessible something that can be tricky to get started with.
Once again, by freeing you from the problem of getting the draughtsmanship right in the first place, Michael Lakin is able to concentrate on demonstrating the use of brushwork, colour and shading for producing detailed flower portraits. There’s still a lot to learn, of course, and six demonstrations, detailed as they are, won’t teach you everything you need to know, but by the end you’ll be able to decide whether it’s worth progressing and buying one of the many larger books on the subject.
Botanical Sketchbook || Mary Ann Scott with Margaret Stevens
Posted by henry in Author: Margaret Stevens, Author: Mary Ann Scott, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Batsford, Subject: Botanical Illustration, Subject: Flowers on January 26, 2010
This is an intriguing guide to painting flowers and plants from the perspective of someone who is following a defined course (the Society of Botanical Artists’ Distance Learning Course). On the face of it, you’d be inclined to be sceptical: can you really learn anything by watching someone else learn; isn’t that idea the very definition of an oxymoron?
Without the capable hands of Margaret Stevens and the SBA, I’d say it probably was. The other thing that has to be said is that Mary Ann Scott, the learner, is a capable artist who, at the beginning, is clearly not short of ability and so we’re not subjected to 80-odd pages of not-very-good exercises while she gets her hand in. It’s possible to see the progression, but every illustration is something you’d be pretty pleased to have done yourself and that’s the book’s secret, the reason why you learn along with Mary Ann. The sketchbook of the title is the record of her work towards the Society’s Diploma.
This is a well thought-out and well structured book that doesn’t just explain the process of botanical painting, but also the process of learning it.
Contemporary Botanical Illustration With The Eden Project || Rosie Martin & Meriel Thurstan
Posted by henry in Author: Meriel Thurstan, Author: Rosie Martin, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Batsford, Subject: Botanical Illustration, Subject: Flowers on June 28, 2008
This is the successor to Rosie and Meriel’s deservedly popular Botanical Illustration Course with the Eden Project, which appeared a couple of years ago. Rather than simply give us more of the same, this time the pair have concentrated on a wider variety of plant material and also foliage and have also extended their reach to some of the colours that students of the previous book reported that they had trouble with. Thus we get subtle shades of blue and pink, the huge variety of greens and even that forbidden territory: black.
Although the intention here, as before, is to make the book accessible to the more general painter, there is no compromise on the quality of the artwork and the authors are fortunate in having access to some fine contemporary botanical artists (hence the title), who provide excellent examples of both their subject matter and what can be done in the medium. Although the progress of the book is not step-by-step as such, there are several places where stage illustrations are used and there are frequent analyses of colour and palette that manage successfully to get to the heart of the matter.
This is very much a book for the serious and more experienced flower painter. Where the previous book provided an introduction for those who already had some facility, it would be a good idea to have studied at least one other manual before attempting this one. Let’s face it, there is a great number of books out there and you’re spoiled for choice and suitability! Given that, it’s quite an achievement to produce something that adds to the canon without duplicating what’s already there.
Batsford 2008
£19.99
The Botanical Palette || Margaret Stevens
Posted by henry in Author: Margaret Stevens, Author: Society of Botanical Artists, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Collins, Subject: Botanical Illustration, Subject: Flowers on August 28, 2007
in association with the Society of Botanical Artists
The basis of this book is an idea so simple and original that it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been done before. It’s flower painting arranged by colour. Of course, why didn’t I think of that? Horticultural books quite naturally arrange flowers by type because that’s how gardeners look at them, but we’re not gardeners; well, not in this context, at least. We’re painters and we approach things by colour and design and taxonomy is irrelevant.
The inspiration came from students of the SBA’s Distance Learning Diploma Course, who apparently confessed to having problems particularly with some of the strong colours that can appear in flower painting and all credit to Margaret Stevens who didn’t respond by replying, “well really, call yourself an artist?”, but set about an approach to solving the problem.
The Botanical Palette is the successor to the previous Stevens/SBA book, The Art of Botanical Painting, which was an thorough and in-depth look at serious flower painting that made few compromises to the flower portrait approach but came with a quiet authority that made it one of the most important guides to a popular and well-covered subject.
This new volume has a more relaxed feel about it and, while retaining the quality of painting and writing that characterised its predecessor, newcomers to the art of recording flowers and plants rather than just using them as another painting subject should feel welcome and unintimidated by the seniority (for want of a better word) of the instruction here. If you’re serious about flower painting, this is a very good place to start because you’ll be taught correctly right from the start. Not that this is a beginner’s book: you need to have a fair amount of experience in handling paint before you start and it is encouraging that publishers are beginning to discover that books that don’t start right from the basics have a strong market.
At £25, this isn’t cheap, but it’s substantial in every way. The backing of the SBA gives it authority and the illustrations, by a variety of the Society’s members, are all top-class. The reproduction is faultless and it’s printed on a decent, heavyweight paper that allows the printing ink to work to full depth and produce the strong, clear colours without which a book of this nature would, frankly, be worthless.
Collins 2007
£25
Botanical Illustration Course || Rosie Martin & Meriel Thurstan
Posted by henry in Author: Meriel Thurstan, Author: Rosie Martin, Publisher: Batsford, Subject: Botanical Illustration, Subject: Flowers on May 9, 2006
Books on flower painting fall into roughly three categories: flowers as part of a larger painting, flower and plant portraits and botanical illustration. Each one gets progressively more detailed and more obsessed with absolute botanical accuracy. At its very highest level, a single painting of a flower will be used to stand for a whole species and will define it for identification purposes in a way that a photograph (which will always be specific to an individual specimen) cannot.
For the general painter, this level of detail is unnecessary. The main thing is that a flower should look like a flower. If someone comes in and sees you painting, what you’d like them to say is “that’s a nice daffodil” not, “that’s nice, what is it?”. So, when you’re looking for a book on flower painting, for the most part, the flower portrait level is what you need. If you want a botanically purist approach, then Coral Guest’s Painting Flowers in Watercolour, published by A & C Black, has Kew’s imprimatur.
However, if you want a little less than obsessive detail, then this book will fit the bill very nicely. Coming with the authority of the world-famous Eden Project, it’s a bit more than just flower portraits, but does allow the possibility of slightly softer paintings which, by that means, tend to look more like living plants than museum specimens. Of its type, it’s probably the best of the current crop of flower painting books.
The word “course” can conjure up the image of something very dry that makes you work through endless exercises before you’re actually allowed to do anything pictorial. While there is a lot of information on drawing, mark-making, shapes, colours, tones and shadows, the authors actually do a lot of the work for you. That doesn’t mean to say that you can just flick through the book and be a flower painter (of course), but it does make for a colourful production and one which leads by example. All those little sketches, colour grids and practice images are going to get you wanting to try it for yourself; you’re going to be thinking “can you really make it do that?”.
Just looking through the book, the sense is of a wealth of information that can’t be taken in at one sitting and this is borne out in practice. Although this is a book you can open almost at random and pick up ideas from, it’s also very carefully and rather cleverly structured. Although every chapter results in and illustrates finished work, it’s actually progressive and you’ll find that you can build up skills by also working through it from beginning to end.
Year published: 2006
List price: £18.99
