Today, guest Liz Leech shares with us the moment she realized botany classes for artists were necessary. She says she knew botany classes would be helpful when…
A couple of fellow students on the diploma course produced wonderful paintings marred by obvious botanical errors (e.g. one had put in a leaf to make the composition better but had upset the natural leaf pattern on the branch, and could not “see” anything wrong with her painting). Others had on-going problems understanding the structure of some flowers and how the parts related to each other. Various fellow students then started to ask me questions and to ask for help with their botanical concerns. Once we founded the Florilegium, over time, I was asked to do a range of sessions on botanical topics for my fellow members. I also started to teach botany-based courses for artists at West Dean College, a new idea at the time. This in turn lead to my “distilling” information in the form of a series of notes to be handed out after I had delivered workshops, using lots of plant material, on different topics – starting with floral structure, fruits, ferns, fungi etc. Anything of interest or considered difficult.
ArtPlantae Today 