ArtPlantae Today

After Liz identified a need for botany instruction, she was encouraged to write her book. She explains:

I finally decided to write my book in October 2009, having toyed with the idea for the previous 4 years or so. The final impetus came when I met Valerie Oxley who had just published her wonderful book “Botanical Illustration” with the Crowood Press. I mentioned that I intended to write a book on botany for botanical artists and wondered if she too thought there was a need. She was suitably enthusiastic and pointed me in the direction of her publisher with the words “Get on with it”.

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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.

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Lizabeth Leech is a botanist, botanical artist, teacher and author. Liz has worked as a botanist at the Field Studies Council, taught biology in Australia, studied the flora and fauna of Australia as a postgraduate student, taught high school for 20 years and worked as a research assistant in soft fruit breeding and in a tissue culture lab growing eucalyptus and acacia trees. In the years leading to retirement, Liz began to study botanical illustration.

Since graduating from the diploma course in botanical painting at the English Gardening School in 2002, Liz has become a founding member of the Hampton Court Palace Florilegium Society, developed short courses in botany for artists and written the new book, Botany for Artists, released in the US just this morning!

Please welcome Liz Leech, the Featured Botanist for May!

A Conversation with Liz
Instead of publishing a complete interview like I normally do on the first day of the month, Liz and I will work together to lead this month’s conversation. We are slowing down our dialogue so that you can comment and ask questions as the conversation develops.

The conversation with Liz will advance every 2-3 days when I will ask our guest a new question. To comment or to ask a question at any time, click in the Comment box below and enter your comment or question. Before you click the Post Comment button, be sure to check the box next to “Notify me of follow-up comments via email”. By checking this box, you will be able to follow the conversation from your inbox.

Let’s begin!

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