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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Create a nature journal of autumn leaves

Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Sketching & Journaling on July 15, 2015|

Fall leaves © Linda C. Miller, all rights reserved

Believe it or not, the end of summer is beginning to appear on the horizon. School begins next month and the seasons will change once again.

If you live in the vicinity of Williamsburg, Virginia, you have the opportunity to capture the changing seasons with botanical artist Linda C. Miller.

Here is what’s new in the Classes Near You sections for Virginia and
North Carolina.

Linda C. Miller
www.lindacmillerbotanicalarttoday.com

Linda is a botanical artist from Virginia and the artist in residence at The Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo, NC. Learn more about this special honor. Linda teaches in North Carolina and in Virginia. Visit Linda’s blog, Botanical Art Today to learn about her classes and upcoming gallery appearances.

Fall Botanical Workshop

The Elizabethan Gardens, Odom Hall. © Linda C. Miller, all rights reserved

Use your artistic skills to illustrate and create a Botanical Portrait working with flora from The Elizabethan Garden’s greenhouses and grounds. Learn basic drawing skills, observation, and watercolor techniques to create a botanical painting. Beginner and advanced students welcome!

Materials list provided by instructor. For additional information, please contact Linda. To register, contact The Elizabethan Gardens at
(252) 473-3234.

Two Day Workshop Option:
$100.00 member, $120 non-member

Three Day Workshop:
$150.00 member, $180 non-member

Class limit: 10

Fall Nature Journal Class
Freedom Park Interpretive Center Building
Williamsburg, VA
November 14, 2015
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Learn how to keep your own nature journal. Instructor Linda Miller will demonstrate ways of journal-keeping including drawing flora, making quick landscape studies and nature poetry. No experience necessary. Please bring your own journal, pencil, and a small package of colored markers.

Class Fee: $15 per person
Class Limit: 10

Painting Fall Leaves in Watercolor
Freedom Park Interpretive Center
Williamsburg, VA
Wednesdays: October 28, November 4 & 11, 2015
10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Learn how to draw and paint fall leaves. Instructor will provide watercolor paper. Please bring your own journal, pencil and watercolor paints.

Workshop Fee: $75 per person
Class Limit: 6

Private Watercolor Lessons with Linda C. Miller
Limited to four guests each session, designed especially for you.
Learn more about Linda at Linda Miller Botanical Art.
Half-day: 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. or 12:30 – 3:30 p.m. ($75 per person).
Full-day: 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. ($125 per person).

Related
When in Williamsburg, don’t miss Birds, Bugs, and Blooms: Observing the Natural World in the 18th Century, now at Colonial Williamsburg through January 2, 2017.

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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|

Download PDF

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.