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The Rise of Women as Botanical Illustrators

Posted in botanical art, Education, general botany, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events on August 14, 2013|

Image courtesy of Lenhardt Library, Chicago Botanic Garden. All rights reserved.

The Feminine Perspective:
Women Artists and Illustrators
Lenhardt Library
Chicago Botanic Garden
August 23 – November 10, 2013

Next week an exhibition of rare and beautiful works by some of the first women to achieve prominence in the field of botanical illustration will go on display at the Lenhardt Library in the
Regenstein Center of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Illinois, this exhibition is the library’s first exhibition exclusively about women. Leora Siegel, Director of the Lenhardt Library, will give a presentation about the lives of these pioneering women and their detailed illustrations. This presentation will occur on Sunday, September 29, 2013 and begin at 2 p.m.

Volumes from the library’s rare book collection provide a published record of the advancement of women as botanical artists and illustrators. The exhibition will include the work of Lady Harriet Ann Thiselton-Dyer, who took over as illustrator for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in 1878. Also featured will be an earlier British artist, Henrietta Maria Moriarty; Frenchwoman Henriette Antoinette Vincent, who was connected to the royal court of Napoleon; and Americans Ellen Robbins and Helen Sharp.

This exhibition of illustrations is part of the library’s ongoing effort to make digital copies of its collection available to the public through the Illinois Digital Archives. To view the library’s digitized rare books, visit the page for the Chicago Botanic Garden Lenhardt Library.

About the Chicago Botanic Garden
The Chicago Botanic Garden opened to the public in 1972 and is managed by the Chicago Horticultural Society, accredited by the American Association of Museums and a member of the American Public Gardens Association (APGA). It is the 12th largest tourist attraction in Chicago and is the area’s sixth largest cultural institution. The Chicago Botanic Garden is a 385-acre living plant museum featuring 26 distinct gardens and four natural areas. Admission is free; select event fees apply. Parking is $25 per car; free for Garden members.

Follow the Garden on these social media sites:
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube.

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Leaf Lab to Open at Brenton Arboretum

Posted in botanical art, botany, Education, Learning Opportunities, nature, Reference, Special Announcements, Special Events on August 13, 2013|

Attention teachers, naturalists and artists near Dallas Center, Iowa!

The Leaf Lab at the Brenton Arboretum will open on August 20, 2013 and will be open every Wednesday from 1-4 PM through November 13, 2013. Visitors to the lab will learn about leaf morphology and plant identification. They will also be able to compare leaves in their personal collections to leaves in the lab and to leaves on the trees in the Arboretum’s living collection.

Cost: $5 lab contribution per visit

Learn more about the Brenton Arboretum, their classes and other services at www.thebrentonarboretum.org. Follow them on Twitter (@brentontrees) and Facebook.

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ArtPlantae Books Expands, Offers Textbook Rentals

Posted in ArtPlantae Books, Blog News, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events, Technology on August 9, 2013|

Rent textbooks from ArtPlantae Books

Think textbooks are too expensive? So do I.

So, new for this year, students can rent their textbooks through ArtPlantae’s new, state-of-the-art online textbook rental store found at http://artplantaebooks.bookrenterstore.com powered by BookRenter. Renting textbooks typically saves students an average of 75% off the price of the book, which can mean thousands of dollars over a college career, and renting from ArtPlantae Books helps to support ArtPlantae.

The store has access to more than 5,000,000 high-quality U.S. edition titles. It’s easy to use – once you search for and select your books, you simply choose a shipping option and enter your payment information, and your books will arrive at your door within a few days. Standard shipping is free both ways, and almost any book is available in 2 days using the Express Plus shipping option.

You can rent textbooks for any of 5 different time periods, and can always extend rentals or buy books outright at any time, and rental fees apply towards the purchase price of the book. This means you never pay more to rent than the purchase price of a book. You can also write or highlight in your rentals just as with purchased books (just don’t turn it into a work of art), and, like Netflix, returns are always easy and free.

ArtPlantae’s new bookstore powered by BookRenter also offers a 5-Star Satisfaction Guarantee. You can return books for any reason within 21 days, no questions asked. Every order is available for express shipping, and return shipping is always free. You are guaranteed that you will be happy with the quality of your books (or you’ll be shipped another at no cost). You can extend a rental at any time – at the same cheap daily rate. And, keeping a book will never cost more than the purchase price.

Over 500 college bookstores at schools like the University of Texas-Austin, University of Kansas, Arizona State University have also chosen BookRenter to power their textbook rental stores. Did I mention you can search for books by school and course?

To start saving on textbook rentals while also supporting ArtPlantae’s efforts to encourage an interest in plants, visit http://artplantaebooks.bookrenterstore.com.

Please share this exciting news with friends, students, and colleagues. Thank you!

About BookRenter
BookRenter launched in 2008 and is dedicated to making education more affordable by allowing students to rent textbooks for up to 75% off the retail price. BookRenter’s innovative pricing and operating systems provide students with the best price, highest quality books, and most flexible rental experience available today. Currently carrying over 5 million titles and serving thousands of students on over 5,000 U.S. campuses, BookRenter is one of the fastest growing startups in Silicon Valley, growing at over 400% each year. BookRenter, with offices in San Mateo, California, is a private company that is funded by prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

About ArtPlantae Books
ArtPlantae Books complements the educational resource ArtPlantae.com. It serves a community of artists, naturalists, and educators pursuing interests in plant-based education, botanical art, environmental education, and STEM / STEAM education. ArtPlantae Books is a member of the American Booksellers Association.

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Closing Soon – Botanical Art Exhibition at Tring Museum

Posted in botanical art, Education, general botany, History, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events on August 7, 2013|

There is still time to see the exhibition, Blooming Marvellous, an exhibition showcasing 400 years of botanical art. This exhibition is now on view at the Natural History Museum at Tring in Hertfordshire, England. This show will close on August 18, 2013.

Visit the museum to learn how botanists and artists interpreted nature and plants in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Featured in this exhibition is the work of the following artists:

Sydney Parkinson
Georg Dionysius Ehret
Franz Bauer
Arthur Harry Church

Tomorrow, August 8, museum guests will have the opportunity to create their own Blooming Marvellous creation. Guests are invited to create their own tissue-paper flower from 10:15 – 11:45 AM and 2:00 – 3:45 PM.
Tickets are £1.50.

Learn more about Blooming Marvellous

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Botanical Art & Botany with Linda Vorobik

Posted in botanical art, botany, Education, general botany, herbarium, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, travel on August 7, 2013|

New updates for the Classes Near You pages for California, Hawaii and Washington.

Vorobik Botanical Art
www.vorobikbotanicalart.com
Linda Ann Vorobik, Ph.D. is a botanical illustrator and botanist who teaches at the Jepson Herbarium at UC Berkeley, conducts field research in the Siskiyou Mountains in Oregon and teaches botanical illustration in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. Visit Linda’s website to view her current teaching schedule, online gallery, blog, and to sign-up for her newsletter.

An Introduction to Botanical Art

Painting Orchids on the Big Island of Hawaii – October 20-26, 2013

Plan Ahead for 2014!

An Introduction to Botanical Art
Santa Barbara Botanical Garden
Santa Barbara, CA
March 22-23, 2014

An Introduction to Botanical Art
Center for Urban Horticulture
University of Washington Botanic Gardens
Seattle, WA
October 4-5, 2014

Painting Orchids on the Big Island of Hawaii
October 19-25, 2014

Also See
An interview with Linda Ann Vorobik

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This Week Only! The Visual Exploration of Biological Forms

Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events on August 5, 2013|

The exhibition WILDLIFE: Visual Explorations of Biological Forms in Nature opens today at the Godine Family Gallery at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design.

WILDLIFE is an exhibition of biological art by 12 artists who spent 12 days in nature exploring and studying plants and animals in Natural History and Biological Art, a four-week summer course taught by biology professor Dr. Saúl S. Nava. An opening reception will be held today, August 5, from 4:30 – 6:30 PM. This exhibition of student work will be on view through Friday, August 9, 2013.

Visit the Godine Family Gallery

About Dr. Saúl Nava
Professor Saúl Nava teaches the life sciences and biology at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) and is a faculty research associate in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. He also teaches summer programs about art and biology. One program is called
Field BIO+ART: Collaborative R.N.A. (Research in Nature and Art). The other program is about natural history and biological art and is an introduction to visualizing plants, animals and natural forms.

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Classroom Resources About Plants, Science and Art

Posted in Blog News, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events on August 1, 2013|

It’s Back-to-School time.

This month the focus will be on Classroom Resources. I have been reorganizing to get ready for a new school year and to make ArtPlantae a helpful resource for teachers preparing to take on the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. While classroom resources will receive special attention this month, bringing such resources to you will be an on-going effort as I continue to encourage an interest in plants and continue to connect artists, naturalists and teachers.

Centered around home, school and community, the month of August begins with a special exhibition celebrating the importance of home and information about a resource that should be in every educator’s toolbox. Read about the Habitat for Humanity Artist Showcase in the next article. Come back tomorrow for the teaching and learning column to learn about a resource offering a year’s worth of thoughtful activities designed to connect students with nature.

As this month progresses, I hope you will take a moment to respond to
“Tips & Tools” inquiries and participate in conversation with fellow readers.

Let’s get ready for a new school year!

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