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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Introduction to botanical illustration with Gilly Shaeffer

Posted in Education, Learning Opportunities on June 17, 2015|

New at Classes Near You > Southern California!

Gilly Shaeffer
www.gillyshaeffer.com

Gilly Shaeffer is an award-winning artist and a graduate of Anne-Marie Evans’ certificate program in botanical art. A member of the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA), Gilly served as president of the Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California, a chapter of the ASBA, from 1999-2005. Her work has been in juried exhibitions across the United States and is in the permanent collection at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University.

Drawing Basics

Learn the fundamentals of botanical illustration with Gilly at her Los Angeles studio. Students will practice exercises and techniques that will improve observational skills. This is a great opportunity for beginning and intermediate artists to perfect their drawing skills. Students will also learn how to prepare watercolor paintings of botanical subjects.

Cost: $160

To register, please contact Gilly.

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Summer School for Artists, Naturalists and Educators

Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events, Teaching & Learning on June 3, 2015|

View Symposium schedule

Interested in learning more about the history of botany and botanical art?

A fantastic learning opportunity is coming to Southern California this summer that you don’t want to miss.

The eccentric beauty of the plant kingdom will be celebrated in a traveling exhibition of contemporary botanical illustrations and will be on view
June 13–Aug. 23, 2015 (Saturdays and Sundays only), at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. “Weird, Wild & Wonderful: The New York Botanical Garden Second Triennial Exhibition” is curated by the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA). The juried show includes 47 works, selected from a field of nearly 240 submissions, created by ASBA artists from Australia, Canada, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The show will be on view in the Flora-Legium of the Brody Botanical Center and is included with general admission to The Huntington.

“Botanical artists have traditionally depicted conventionally beautiful flora,” said Robert Hori, gardens cultural curator and program director at The Huntington. “This exhibition is meant to showcase nature’s oddities—plants of charismatic quirkiness that have a bizarre beauty all their own.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, The Huntington will co-host a symposium
July 23–26, 2015, offering a broad view of all that is weird, wild, and wonderful in the plant kingdom. The symposium is presented in partnership with the ASBA and the Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California (BAGSC, the local ASBA chapter). Learn about plants, explore the history of botany, take a botanical art class and learn about photography too. You can view the complete schedule on the Symposium website.

In addition to an exciting selection of classes, there will be special keynote presentations by botanists, artists and historians. The schedule of Symposium keynote lectures is as follows:

Do You ‘See’ Plants? Using Art and Technology to Teach Science

Painting the Wonder Plants of Borneo

The Art of Orchids

Orchid Digest

The Beauty of Ancient Plant Representations:
Weird or Wonderful?

From Field to Print: Botanical Art and Photography for Conifers Around the World and the Dendrological Atlas

An adjunct exhibition of approximately 60 works by local BAGSC members will be on view in the Brody Botanical Center Aug. 1–9. This supplemental show will extend the theme of weird and wonderful plants through educational outreach activities for children and families, demonstrations in different media, informal workshops, displays of botanical curiosities, and “Find Me in the Garden” links between the exhibitions and the botanical collections. During the week of this display, both exhibitions will be open to visitors daily (Wednesday through Monday) during public hours.

Summer school has never ever been this exciting!

Register Today

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Botanical artists using dry-brush technique

Posted in Education on June 3, 2015| 18 Comments »

iStock_ColorfulPalette copy Dear Readers,

A fellow reader has asked an interesting question.

Increasingly dissatisfied with the wet-in-wet watercolor technique taught in traditional botanical art classes, this reader was wondering if there are any botanical artists who use dry-brush as their predominant technique.

Well aware that botanical artists often use dry-brush to put finishing details into their wet-n-washy paintings, this reader is asking for your help:

Can you recommend any botanical artists, working in watercolor, whose primary technique is dry brush applied in stippling, hatching, or both?

Let’s Chat
If you know of botanical artists or scientific illustrators who work in this way, please respond in the Comment box below. Thank you for your help!

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Journal about botany and art this summer

Posted in Education, Teaching & Learning on May 27, 2015|

In 2011 botanists and botanical illustrators collaborated to create Botany & Art: Their Roles in Conservation, a special issue for the publication Smithsonian in the Classroom. While designed for school use, the usefulness of this issue extends far beyond the formal K-12 classroom. The information contained within this issue can also be used by informal science educators and parents leading their family on a summertime road trip.

This week we reach into the archives of the teaching and learning column. If keeping a nature journal is part of your summer plans, take a few moments to download the resources featured in this article.

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Study classical botanical art on the island of Kauai

Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, travel on May 27, 2015|

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The Art of Flowers
Princeville, HI
August 3-7, 2015
9 AM to 3 PM

A five-day botanical art workshop about the Renaissance techniques of the French Court Masters with Olivia Braida-Chiusano, founder and director of OM Art Designs and the Academy of Botanical Art in Sarasota, Florida.

This workshop will be held at the Princeville Community Center on the island of Kauai.

Designed for beginning to advanced artists, this insightful class in classical botanical art technique offers individual instruction and includes:

Slide presentation of “A Brief History of Botanical Art.”
Plant subject, paper supplies, pencils, erasers, syllabus, and handouts.
Daily refreshments
One complimentary group dinner during the study week.
A FREE copy of a botanical art publication by James White and Lugene Bruno, past and present curators at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University.

Participants wishing to paint their subjects must bring their own painting supplies.

Cost: $875 per person

Tuition does not include travel and hotel. Please contact The Academy for hotel information and for information about the Princeville area. Participants must to make their own hotel reservations.

Register Today

This information has been added to the “Classes Near You” sections for Hawaii and Florida.

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‘Losing Paradise?’ in Stock

Posted in botanical art books, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements on May 22, 2015|

Botanical artists, some of whom had depicted only garden varieties of familiar flowers, set out to increase public awareness about plants threatened with extinction. They learned of the various organizations that assess the conservation status of endangered plant species such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network which produces the Red List of Threatened Species, NatureServe which produces conservation status assessments in the U.S. and Canada, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service which administers the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Artists formed collaborations with local scientists, conservation organizations, and botanical gardens that could provide guidance in locating and studying the plants whether they be in public collections or in the wild.

The publication about their project is now available at ArtPlantae’s store.

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World Environment Day Celebration

Posted in Learning Opportunities on May 21, 2015|

ArtPlantae will participate in the 3rd Annual Palm Springs World Environment Day, a free fun-filled event for the entire family. Guest speakers will present information about health, well-being, nutrition and sustainability. There will also be face painting, information about gardening, tips about how to live a “green” lifestyle, and instruction about how to create your own recycled art. Don’t miss animal encounters with WOW of The Living Desert. Music will be provided by the Hot Purple Energy All Stars. World Environment Day is the United Nations’ principal outreach vehicle encouraging environmental awareness.

The CREEC Environmental Art Show & Awards will be held at 7:30 pm. “CREEC” is the acronym for the California Regional Environmental Education Community which is a communication network established by the state to support environmental literacy. This network connects teachers with high-quality environmental education resources. This year the exhibition’s theme is “Water”. Artists in grades K-12 have the opportunity to submit art in three different categories: Environmental Art, Recycled Art, Digital Art/Photo Essay.

Teachers still have time to submit student artwork. The deadline has been extended to Thursday, May 28, 2015. Click on the image below to download the contest flyer for your classroom.

The 3rd Annual Palm Springs World Environment Day celebration will be held on Friday, June 5, 2015 from 6-10 p.m. at the Palm Springs Pavilion. See you there!

Directions to Palm Spring Pavilion

Download flyer for your classroom.