Special Announcements | ArtPlantae Today

Archive for the ‘Special Announcements’ Category

Near You

Posted in Calendars, community, environmental education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, tagged environmental education on November 28, 2023|

One of the most visited sections of the ArtPlantae website was the “Classes Near You” section where I listed classes and travel experiences related to botany, botanical art, and natural history art. When I turned my attention to my current project in 2018, this section featured learning opportunities in eleven countries and 34 U.S. states. I loved highlighting these opportunities and the artists and educators who led them.

Last week, I launched a resource similar to the “Classes Near You” section. This time, this resource is a Calendar of Opportunity for anyone leading conversations and experiences strengthening environmental awareness. This includes YOU and the way you facilitate connections between people and plants.
There are no costs involved in adding your workshop to the new calendar. The calendar lives on the Lu.ma platform. You will need a Luma account (this is also free). You retain control of your listing and your audience. To have your event appear on the new calendar, all you need to do is select the TALATERRA calendar when creating your event. By doing so, your event will populate the calendar automatically and appear alongside events created by other independent professionals and organizations too. After the date and time of your event pass, your listing is removed from the calendar automatically. Here are clear step-by-step directions and a couple of helpful images.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me here. Please mention the ArtPlantae website in your message. I look forward to learning about your classes and the conversations you are leading.

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New podcast for educators

Posted in Special Announcements on February 11, 2019|

Dear Readers,

In September I archived this blog to focus on a new project investigating how freelance educators in natural resource fields and environmental education contribute to lifelong learning in their communities. Last month I launched a new component to this project and I thought it might be of interest to you.

The new component I launched is a weekly podcast for freelance educators. On the podcast, I feature an independent educator or a topic of interest to freelance educators. To learn more about this podcast, please visit the show’s website at Talaterra.com.

Alternatively, you can listen to the trailer below.

Thank you for your time,

Tania

Talaterra Trailer, Season 2

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ArtPlantae blog archived

Posted in Special Announcements on September 20, 2018|

Dear Readers,

I write a personal note to you today to inform you I am moving on to another project and will stop updating the ArtPlantae blog.

I am currently investigating the contributions freelance educators make to lifelong learning in communities. My specific focus is educators who address nature and the environment in their work. I believe that freelance environmental educators working in informal learning environments are uniquely positioned to create change at the community level. This project requires all of my attention, so I have decided to stop editing the ArtPlantae blog. The blog will remain online, however, and will stay available to you. I hope you continue to refer to the content featured on this site.

I would like to thank you for your support of ArtPlantae during the past 16 years. Some of you have followed ArtPlantae from the beginning and have watched ArtPlantae evolve from the original Artists’ Botany newsletter into the Artists’ Herbarium, then the ArtPlantae blog and its sidekick ArtPlantae Books. To everyone who stopped by the ArtPlantae booth at environmental education events, garden shows, family book festivals, teacher and librarian events, exhibitions, and conferences — thank you for visiting.

Thank you all for contributing so much to this blog over the years and for your interest in my mission to bring botany and botanical art education to the public.

With heartfelt appreciation,

Tania Marien

Related

If you are a freelance informal educator (part-time or full-time) addressing natural resources or the environment through your artwork, classes, programs, or service and are interested in meeting other people like you, please join me here.

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Digital botanical illustration recognized by The Linnean Society of London

Posted in botanical art, Special Announcements, tagged Niki Simpson on May 30, 2018|

Each year The Linnean Society of London issues the Jill Smythies Award to a botanical artist for outstanding illustrations.

The Jill Smythies Award is awarded to “a botanical artist in recognition of excellence in published illustrations, such as drawings or paintings, in aid of plant identification, with the emphasis on botanical accuracy and the accurate portrayal of diagnostic characteristics.” The work submitted for consideration must be “excellent botanical art (drawing or painting) that is ‘an aid to identification and a portrayal of diagnostic characteristics.’”

I am thrilled to announce that
Niki Simpson is one of two recipients of the 2018 Jill Smythies Award and that she received this award for her digital botanical illustrations.

If you are a longtime reader of this blog, you may remember Niki’s story. Already an award-winning botanical artist, Niki began developing a technique combining digital photography and traditional botanical art back in 2003. Aware of the argument that traditional illustrations are thought to be more informative than photographs, she investigated ways to increase the amount of information presented in digital illustrations. Her dedication and outside-the-box thinking resulted in digital illustrations that have introduced new audiences to botanical art and have changed the way people view and think about plants.

Niki and botanist Peter G. Barnes first wrote about this new approach to botanical illustration in Photography and contemporary botanical illustration, an article published in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in 2008. In this article, they discuss photography’s “evolving role in botanical illustration” and present digital composite illustrations as “a natural development of the composite watercolour or line illustrations that are familiar to all botanists” (Simpson & Barnes, 2008).

It has been fascinating to watch photography’s role in botanical art evolve, and it is exciting to see Niki Simpson’s contributions recognized by the world’s oldest active biological society.

Over the past 15 years, Niki’s digital botanical illustrations have been on view in numerous exhibitions and have appeared in four books, including the magnificent Nuphar lutea: Botanical images for the digital documentation of a taxon published in May 2016.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has also recognized Niki’s work. Between 1989 and 2008, the RHS awarded Niki medals for both her traditional watercolor paintings and digital botanical illustrations.

Learn more about Niki Simpson’s award-winning digital composite illustrations on her website Visual Botany.

View all 2018 medal winners on The Linnean Society’s blog, including
Juliet Williamson, illustrator of The Kew Plant Glossary: An Illustrated Dictionary of Plant Identification Terms who also received the 2018 Jill Smythies Award for her contributions to botany and botanical art.

Congratulations to Niki and Juliet and thank you for teaching us all so much.

Literature Cited

Simpson, Niki and Peter G. Barnes. (2008). Photography and contemporary botanical illustration. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 25(3): 258-280

Also See

Spirit Books will transform how you think about Nature

Posted in Special Announcements, Teaching & Learning, tagged Arnold Arboretum, Susan Gaylord on May 23, 2018|

Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord is an award-winning artist, author, and speaker. Her stunning handmade books and calligraphy work have been shown in exhibitions throughout the United States. Susan has authored seven books and has served as a contributing artist to several publications. Her current exhibition,
The Spirit Books is now on view at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.

Susan’s Spirit Books series began in 1992. It represents an ongoing exploration of her love of books and her response to the natural world. Using branches, stems, roots, more than 22 types of media, and handmade paper from nine countries, Susan creates wordless books that speak volumes. Each book is placed in a cradle of natural material to produce a sculpture leading to “a contemplative experience that takes the reader out of the everyday world and into a state of gratitude and reverence.”

Additional Spirit Books can be viewed in Susan’s online gallery. I am confident you will find these sculptures beautiful, emotional, and peaceful and that they will pique your curiosity about the countries and cultures behind the materials Susan uses.

To learn more about the Spirit Books on view at the Arnold Arboretum, follow Susan on her blog where she writes about the fourteen books in the exhibition.

If you live in the Boston area, you have the opportunity to learn from Susan personally during her artist’s talk scheduled for Saturday, June 2, 2018 (3-4 pm).

Visit The Arnold Arboretum

BONUS: Make Your Own Books!
Susan is not only a busy artist, but she is also the generous force behind MakingBooks.com, a resource for teachers and parents interested in sharing the book arts with students of all ages.

Visit MakingBooks.com and you’ll find:

Free projects
Tips & Tools for Teachers
Tips & Tools for Families
Videos
Downloadable projects and other resources in the eBookstore.

Of particular interest to botanical and scientific illustrators are Susan’s videos about how to make and use a Plant Tag Fan Book, a Step Book, and a Stick & Elastic Book.

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Guild of Natural Science Illustrators celebrates 50th anniversary in Washington, DC

Posted in Learning Opportunities, scientific illustration, Special Announcements on May 3, 2018|

By Taina Litwak, Program Co-coordinator, GNSI Conference

The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators would like to invite you to join us at the 50th Anniversary GNSI Conference in Washington, D.C., July 15-21, 2018. Illustrators, artists, scientists and educators will gather to showcase award-winning work and new techniques that shape diverse fields of inquiry where science and art converge. We hope you will join fellow artists and science communicators this summer at this historic gathering in Washington D.C., where the GNSI began back in 1968.

Conference registration is now open.

View the conference website at http://2018.conf.gnsi.org.

For more information, please contact Shannon Russell, Local Expert, GNSI Conference 2018.

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Explore Madagascar with illustrator Agathe Haevermans

Posted in Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, travel, tagged Agathe Haevermans, Madagascar, Thomas Haevermans on April 5, 2018|

Courtesy Nomade Aventure, © Agathe and Thomas Haevermans

If you’ve ever wanted to go somewhere less traveled to draw and paint plants like the botanists and artists of past centuries, here is your opportunity.

Scientific illustrator Agathe Haevermans and botanist Thomas Haevermans have announced they will lead a botany and illustration tour of Madagascar in the fall.

This tour is a 14-day adventure that includes travel by foot, bus, boat and dug-out canoe. Travelers will visit national parks and marine reserves, seaside villages, local markets, pristine forests, and meet with Malagasy botanical artists. Travelers will fill their sketchbooks with images daily while learning about Madagascar’s flora and fauna. Madagascar is home to thousands of species believed not to exist anywhere else on earth.

Here is a brief look at the itinerary:

Day 1

Day 3
Hike to the top of Montagne des Français, visit the Orangea forest, sketch the Baobabs, pachypodiums, and other succulent plants.

Day 4
Visit a dense rainforest.

Day 5
Visit geological features, go on a hike and add images to your sketchbook.

Day 6
Visit Ankarana National Park, sketch the botanical curiosities you encounter.

Day 7
Visit an uninhabited island and explore the lagoon.

Day 8
Visit one of the last primary forests where you can find almost all the endemic flora and fauna in northern Madagascar. Travel by cut-out canoe.

Day 9
Morning drawing workshop with Agathe at the hotel. Afternoon on your own.

Day 10
Visit local markets in a seaside village.

Day 11
Visit Ankarafantsika National Park.

Day 12
Explore Ankarafantsika National Park.

Day 13
Walking tour of the City of Flowers.

Day 14
Botanical drawing workshop and other options available on this day.

The full itinerary of this adventure can be viewed on the website of Nomade Aventure, the travel company organizing this trip.

More About Your Experienced Guides

Agathe and Thomas Haevermans are both members of the Société des Explorateurs Français (Society of French Explorers).

Agathe Haevermans is the scientific illustrator at the Muséum National Histoire Naturelle (Museum of Natural History) in Paris. She is also the president of the Société Française d’Illustration Botanique (French Society of Botanical Illustration), and the author of several books, including The Art of Botanical Drawing: An Introductory Guide (2009).

Thomas Haevermans is a botanist who has conducted research throughout Asia and Madagascar. He now manages the botanical team at the Institute of Systemics, Evolution, and Biodiversity at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

Accompanying the Haevermans will be a team of local French-speaking guides and local park guides.

This adventure begins on October 20, 2018, in the capital city of Antananarivo.

Cost: 2929 €

(Note: The duration and price shown in the itinerary does not include an international return flight so to allow travelers to book a return trip most appropriate for their situation)

View map and itinerary

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