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Artists invited to participate in Elmhurst Art Crawl

Posted in community, Special Announcements on August 17, 2016|

The Elmhurst Artists’ Guild in Elmhurst, IL is hosting the First Annual Art Crawl at the Elmhurst Art Museum on August 27, 2016. Proceeds benefit the Elmhurst Artists’ Guild Scholarship Fund. Funds will be used to award scholarships to two high school students.

The Art Crawl is a self-guided walking & trolleying tour of Elmhurst’s museum campus and business sector. Visitors participate by walking and trolleying around town and exploring each venue. An interactive map will be posted on the Guild’s website so visitors can view the locations of participating artists and vendors. The Elmhurst Artists’ Guild (EAG) is excited to have the York Theatre, an Elmhurst landmark, kick off this inaugural event with a special morning screening of “ET the Extra-Terrestrial”; all proceeds will go to the EAG Scholarship Fund.

The EAG invites artists and vendors to set up booths to sell and show their products. Artist’s fees for a space is $75.00, with $50.00 going to the EAG Scholarship Fund and $25.00 going to the Elmhurst Art Museum. The fee for vendors is $150.00, with $125.00 going to the EAG Scholarship Fund and $25.00 going to the Elmhurst Art Museum.

Artists interested in participating in this event should download forms on the EAG website at www.elmhurstartistsguild.org.

About the Elmhurst Artists’ Guild
The Elmhurst Artists’ Guild is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization founded in 1946. Its mission continues as the charitable and non-for-profit functions of shows, workshops, lectures, classes and similar activities which further the purpose of advancing the arts.

About Elmhurst Art Museum
www.elmhurstartmuseum.org
Founded by forward-thinking teachers, artists and community organizers with a shared belief that “people from all walks of life and professions can learn how to see and to think differently through the study of art, architecture and design.”

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Australian botanical artists in new documentary

Posted in botanical art, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements on August 15, 2016|

Click image to view trailer

David Reynolds Art is pleased to announce Studio Sessions—Seen through the eyes of the artist, a documentary about six of Australia’s most respected botanical and natural history artists. Botanical artists and botanical art enthusiasts are invited to learn from:

Celia Rosser

The Banksia’s

Banksia

Jenny Phillips
Award-winning artist and founder of the Botanical Art School of Melbourne. Jenny has drawn and painted plants for more than 45 years. Her work is held in private and public collections, including The Highgrove Florilegium, The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation and the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

Dianne Emery
Fine artist, horticulturist, contemporary botanical artist and natural history artist whose interests include plant-insect relationships and scientific art.

Terry Napier
Botanical artist and founder of the “Nature is Art” program. Recipient of the 2010 Celia Rosser Medal for his commitment to botanical art and teaching.

Mali Moir
Award-winning artist and illustrator with an interest in the artistic interpretation of natural history themes. Recipient of a Gold Medal by The Royal Horticultural Society and the inaugural Celia Rosser Medal.

John Pastoriza-Piñol
A botanist whose botanical art career began at the Botanical Art School of Melbourne. John received a Gold Medal by the Royal Horticultural Society in 2005 and had his first solo exhibition at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2006. His work is held in many private and public collections, including The Highgrove Florilegium, The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.

Studio Sessions—Seen through the eyes of the artist is a 63-minute documentary that took two years to complete. David began this project because he wanted to bring attention to the natural history art of Australian artists. David explains:

As a botanical artist myself, I wanted to produce a documentary to highlight the talents of our Australian artists and to help educate people about botanical art and how to become involved. Also to give the viewer an insight as to how [botanical artists] go about producing such detailed works.

Studio Sessions will be available worldwide as a DVD in both PAL and NTSC formats and be region free. Pre-orders are now being accepted. Orders will begin shipping in September 2016.

To place a pre-order please email your name and contact information to David Reynolds Art. When the video is released next month, David Reynolds Art will contact you to arrange for payment and delivery.

Studio Sessions costs $30 AUD + shipping (view currency converter).

Visit David Reynolds Art

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Botanical art exhibition founded over 50 years ago continues

Posted in botanical art, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events on July 21, 2016|

By The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Soft Tree Fern, Dicksonia antarctica [Dicksonia antarctica Labillardière, Dicksoniaceae], watercolor on paper by Laurie Andrews (1936–), 2008, 76.5 ◊ 56.5 cm, HI Art accession no. 8078, reproduced by permission of the artist.

The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation presents our
15th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration from
15 September to 15 December 2016. This exhibition includes 43 artworks by 43 artists who are citizens of 15 countries. The Institute established the International series in 1964 with the hope of supporting and encouraging contemporary botanical artists. Every three years, the International series features the works of talented botanical artists from around the world.

Join us Thursday, 13 October 2016 from 6-8 p.m. for the reception. At 6:30 p.m. the curators will give a short introduction to the exhibition in the gallery.

A full-color, illustrated catalog with biographical data, portraits of the artists and reproductions of the artworks accompanies the exhibition. Collectively, the 15 International series catalogs include 1,172 artists and are the most comprehensive record available of contemporary botanical artists and illustrators to date.

View list of participating artists and selected artworks

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Chinese woodblocks focus of new exhibition

Posted in Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements on July 1, 2016|

Pomegranate and Magnolia with Bird, Qing dynasty, ca. 1700–1750. Artist: Ding Liangxian. Publisher: Jinchang district, Suzhou, Jiangsu province. Woodblock print with embossing, ink and colors on paper (multi-block technique with hand-coloring), 11 7/8 × 14 3/4 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints
Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens
Boone Gallery
Sept. 17, 2016 thru
Jan. 9, 2017

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens will present a major international loan exhibition exploring the art, craft, and cultural significance of Chinese woodblock prints made during their golden age, with works made from the late 16th century through the 19th century.

“Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints” brings together 48 of the finest examples gathered from the National Library of China, Beijing; the Nanjing Library; the Shanghai Museum; and 14 institutional and private collections in the United States. The exhibition presents monumental visual accounts of sprawling, architecturally elaborate “scholar’s gardens,” alongside delicate prints with painterly textures and subtle colors depicting plants, birds, and other garden elements so finely wrought they might be mistaken for watercolors. A highlight of the exhibition is The Huntington’s rare edition of the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting (ca. 1633–1703), on public view for the first time in this exhibition.

During the late Ming (1368–1644) and early Qing (1644–1912) dynasties, an increase in wealth, stemming in part from the salt, rice, and silk industries, led to higher levels of literacy and education. Consumer demand for printed words and images increased as merchants and scholars looked for ways to display their taste in drama, poetry, literature, and art. For these elites, gardens were central to a cultured life, appearing frequently in woodblock prints as subject or setting. By the 1590s, several enterprising publishers were successfully meeting the strong demand for woodblock prints. They hired renowned designers, carvers, and printers to produce sophisticated and exquisite works, raising the standards of printmaking. During the last decades of the Ming dynasty, several centers of printing around the lower Yangzi River delta grew in reputation, ushering in a golden age of Chinese pictorial printing.

Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about Chinese woodblock printing techniques in the Education Gallery. Lectures, a workshop and a symposium have also been planned. A summary of related programming follows:

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Chinese Woodblock Prints of the Late Ming and Qing Periods

“How Can I Disdain…this Carving of Insects?” Painters, Carvers, and Style in Chinese Woodblock Printed Images
October 25, 2016
7:30 pm
Free lecture, Rothenberg Hall

The Huang Family of Block Cutters: The Thread that Binds Late Ming Pictorial Woodblock Printmaking
November 22, 2016
7:30 pm
Free lecture, Rothenberg Hall

Word and Image: Chinese Woodblock Prints,
November 12, 2016
8:30 am – 5:00 pm
Symposium, Rothenberg Hall
View schedule

Chinese Color Woodblock Printing
November 20, 2016
Workshop
See Huntington Calendar for details

More about this exhibition

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Act Now! Spaces available in composition class with Helen Allen at Wellesley College Botanic Gardens

Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements on May 11, 2016|

Helen Allen, artist, teacher and director of The Chelsea School of Botanical Art in England will be at Wellesley College Botanic Gardens next week to teach a composition class. Last-minute openings means you have the unique opportunity to learn from Helen without flying overseas. Click on the image below to download the flyer.

Contact Wellesley College Botanic Gardens ASAP by email or by phone to register. The Garden’s phone number is (781) 283-3094.

Composition Challenge
Plant studies, colors, and drawings are the fun part of creating a beautiful painting, but the challenge is always in composing the page. Helen Allen leads the challenge to create an image that is balanced and draws the viewer to have a closer look – an image that can enchant and inform. Through three days, you will fall in love with your chosen plant, study its habit, and develop drawings that can be used to compose three different paintings. Identify blocks and position of color and study the balance of your compositions. Then choose the best and spend a day adding color to guide you in completing the painting at home.

3 days: Friday, May 20 – Sunday, May 22, 2016
9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
BAC 16 152 / 252
WCBG Friends Members $375 / Non-Members $475

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Book presents work by ‘the first ecologist’, Maria Sibylla Merian

Posted in book review, botanical art books, History, Special Announcements on May 2, 2016|

Merian-PP-For-TRADE-Cat-190x150mm.indd Maria Merian’s Butterflies
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace
London, England
April 15 – October 9, 2016

A new book about the Maria Sibylla Merian collection in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace features 150 color plates, many of which were published in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (The Metamorphoses of the Insects of Surinam).

Kate Heard, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, writes about Merian’s childhood fascination with butterflies and moths and her journey to Suriname to observe and document these insects and their host plants. Heard also writes about the people who influenced Merian’s artwork, and the fieldwork and research that earned Merian the title ‘the first ecologist’.

Every page of this book is a history lesson. If you are an admirer of Merian’s work, this book provides you the opportunity to study her paintings up close as her paintings fill most of the book’s 192 pages. If this is your first introduction to Merian and her contributions to entomology and natural history art, this book is sure to turn you into a fan of this fearless and passionate naturalist.

Maria Merian’s Butterflies compliments the exhibition of the same name now on view at The Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace.

This book is now available at your local independent bookstore.

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Now Live! Online Auction of Botanical Art

Posted in botanical art, Special Announcements, Special Events on April 22, 2016|

Visit the ASBA Online Auction

The American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) invites you to visit their online auction of contemporary botanical art. This public auction is open to everyone with an interest in botanical art. The ASBA has chosen Bidding for Good, a trusted online auction platform to host this fundraising event.

Ninety-one items are up for bid. Items include original artwork and giclee prints by ASBA members, as well as art supplies and jewelry. In many cases the starting bids for artwork are less than the actual value of the work, so this is a wonderful opportunity to buy botanical art for your home or to purchase an elegant plant portrait as a special gift.

Auction proceeds support the ASBA’s mission to “provide a thriving, interactive community dedicated to perpetuating the tradition and contemporary practice of botanical art”. Proceeds also benefit the artists, underwrite the ASBA journal, and enable the ASBA to produce botanical art exhibitions of the highest quality.

There is a lot to see on the auction site. Act now to be sure you have time to study each work. This auction ends on May 29, 2016 at 11 PM (EDT).

Go to the ASBA Auction

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