Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events on May 23, 2013|
The Society of Floral Painters will celebrate the launch of their 2013 exhibition on June 1. The exhibition will be held at the National Trust Property – The Vyne from June 1-23, 2013. Gallery hours are 12-5 PM Monday to Friday
and 11 AM – 4 PM Saturday and Sunday.
The Vyne is located at Vyne Road, Sherbourne St. John, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 9HL. Click on the poster for directions.
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Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Articles & Interviews, Special Events on May 17, 2013|
After reading Music Hiding in the Air, I was speechless.
I knew of Rory McEwen and his work before reading the memoir written by his niece Christian McEwen. However Rory was simply a name on the timeline of botanical art history I try to organize in my head; his paintings, work to admire and study in books such as Wilfrid Blunt’s The Art of Botanical Illustration: An Illustrated History.
When I put the book down, I couldn’t think beyond what I had just read. I realized I was no longer looking at a timeline with Rory McEwen’s name on it. I stopped being an outside observer because Christian brought me into the timeline of her uncle’s life and allowed me to experience some of it with her.
Christian McEwen’s recollection of her relationship with her uncle is extremely moving and we are fortunate she has chosen to share this relationship with us.
Christian writes about her uncle’s privileged upbringing, his love of music and art, and his hunger for solitude and world travel. She shares personal letters and writes about the impression Rory McEwen made upon her life before his death in 1982 at the age of 50.
Music Hiding in the Air is not a new book. It appeared online ten years ago on a website called Archipelago. It was transformed into book form by Bauhan Publishing because of the exhibition Rory McEwen, The Colours of Reality now at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (May 11 – September 22, 2013). Christian wrote her memoir in the late 1990s while living in the United States. She says she wrote the memoir because at the time she “was hungry for my people and Scotland. Writing about Rory enabled me to connect with Scotland.”
Christian wrote about her uncle to ground herself in her own family story. When she wrote her book, Rory McEwen was an unknown artist partly because he sold his work to private collections. People eventually began to learn about him, however, and Dr. Shirley Sherwood was among those collecting Rory’s work. Now 15 years later, Rory McEwen is receiving recognition that is long overdue. Christian says Rory is “being resurrected” by the event at Kew.
Credited with revolutionizing botanical art, Rory painted images of plants with incredible detail. He painted on vellum and used a heart surgeon’s magnifying glass to look at flowers closely. Christian says that poet Alastair Reid once told her Rory worked with a kind of pulley system that allowed him to hover his hand over the vellum so he wouldn’t smudge it.
How many hours did Rory spend in his studio? Christian isn’t sure. She remembers visiting his studio when she was a teenager, and says Rory could be a very solitary person, and also very gregarious. Somehow he managed to balance family time with long hours alone, painting.
When asked to identify who she would like to read her book, Christian replied:
Those in the immediate family who have been born or have grown up since Rory died.
Botanical artists at all levels of expertise.
The people of Scotland, who up till now may have known him only as a musician. They will rediscover him as a Renaissance man, a poet and an artist, a true cosmopolitan.
Fellow artists and admirers in the United States.
Christian went on to say that many people have connected with her book. Since publishing her memoir online, Christian says strangers have written to her saying they were moved by Rory’s story. His story – a human story – is a good story all by itself.
Whomever reads her book, Christian wants people to understand one thing about her uncle. She wants them to see he understood the true power of the Latin phrase, carpe diem (“seize the day”). She wants people to be inspired by Rory’s story, his art and “the power of life lived in the service of one’s art. Of one’s heart.”
About Christian McEwen
Christian McEwen is a writer, teacher and workshop leader. She came to the University of California at Berkeley on a Fulbright Scholarship, and has lived most of her adult life in the United States. She returns to Scotland to teach each summer. This year, she will be teaching on the Scottish Island of Tanera Mor with the textile artist, Jan Kilpatrick.
Consider taking World Enough & Time: Creativity & Slowing Down on the Summer Isles (June 8-15, 2013). No roads. No shops. No TV. Imagine!
Later this year, Christian will teach The Art of Letter Writing: Voice, Calligraphy & Spirit with calligrapher, illustrator and author, Barbara Bash. This September workshop will be taught at Sky Lake Lodge in Rosendale, NY. Learn More
Posted in botanical art, botanical art books, Drawing, Education, general botany, Learning Opportunities, Special Articles & Interviews, Special Events on May 15, 2013|
I hope you are enjoying the conversation with Katie Zimmerman. I asked Katie if she was going to write a book based on her years of research.
She replied:
I’m in the final stages of writing up my dissertation, and all along I’ve been writing with the book in mind. There are a few books out there already, but they have all treated North as an anomaly in the “intrepid spinster” vein. I don’t want to downplay North’s extraordinary achievements and personality, but to really understand her work and its value beyond its eccentricity, we need a more complete narrative. North’s individualized vision and visualizations, however idiosyncratic, were…
Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events, travel on May 15, 2013| 2 Comments »
From the Mountains to the Sea: Plants, Trees and Shrubs of New England
The first exhibition of the New England Society of Botanical Artists (NESBA) opens on Sunday, May 19, at The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, MA, the first stop on its six-venue journey around New England. The exhibition will feature 60 portraits of native New England plants. Each venue will also feature the drawings and paintings by NESBA members in that state.
The touring schedule for From the Mountains to the Sea includes:
Montshire Museum of Science
Norwich, VT
September – November 2013
Bartlett Arboretum Gardens
Stamford, CT
January – March 2014
Bedford Public Library
Bedford, MA
March – May 2014
Audubon Environmental Education Center
Bristol, RI
May – June 2014
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Boothbay, ME
August – September 2014
Learn more about the New England Society of Botanical Artists on their website. Follow them on Twitter (@NESBAArtists), Like them on Facebook.
Posted in botanical art, Education, general botany, Learning Opportunities, sketchbook, Special Events, travel on May 10, 2013|
When reading about artists traveling on European expeditions, we learn that artists worked in watercolor. Marianne North worked in oil. Does North ever explain why she chose oil over watercolor or other color media?
Yes, she does – and the answer is really interesting in terms of getting a handle on North’s motivations for painting and her self-image as an artist. North took watercolor lessons as a young woman, but once she tried oil painting she found it to be “a vice like dram-drinking, almost impossible to leave off once it gets possession of one.” Besides enjoying the feel and effects of oil colors, it is important to note that North was not a botanical illustrator. If we examine North’s oil sketches within this tradition, the only conclusion that can be, and has too often been made, is that she was bad at her work. This isn’t helpful for reconstructing what it was she was doing. North’s project is more closely aligned with the kind of work being done by the Hudson River School painters in North America, who traveled throughout the United States, the Arctic, Jamaica, and South and Central America with the goal of painting the beauty, unity, and character of nature – and who did so in oils. For North, it wasn’t interesting to paint an uprooted, idealized type-specimen against a white background as per botanical illustration. Instead, she treated the plants and botanical landscapes she encountered as individuals and groups of individuals met with in distinctive settings, all of which she wanted to portray with the vibrancy and materiality of the original encounter, a task best done with oils.
Posted in ArtPlantae Books, botanical art, Education, History, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events, travel on May 8, 2013|
In my review of Marianne North: A Very Intrepid Painter by Michelle Payne, I ramble though calculations as I think aloud as to how Marianne North could have completed 832 paintings in 14 years. What have you discovered about how she worked that would make such an impressive accomplishment possible?
It is impressive! Calculated out it’s something like one painting every six days for fourteen years! And when we consider that the majority of this work was done on-the-spot in distant locales, the achievement becomes even more impressive. There are a few factors that made North’s project as prodigious as it was: first, and a great lesson to all, was the possession of an extraordinary work ethic. North woke early and worked through all kinds of weather, sometimes for up to twelve hours a day. She also famously preferred plants to people, and was often able to carve extra time to work by excusing herself from the many social obligations central to colonial and ex-pat community life in the places she visited. In Sarawak, for example…
Posted in botanical art, drawing, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Events on May 8, 2013|
Summer classes with artist Susan T. Fisher have been announced at Wellesley College Botanic Gardens in Wellesley, MA.
Here is the latest at Classes Near You > Massachusetts.
Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens
Certificate Program in Botanical Art and Illustration
www.wellesley.edu/wcbgfriends
This program offers several weekly and two- or three-day classes on botanical art and scientific illustration with Sarah Roche and Jeanne Kunze and and visiting instructors. The courses offered through this program cover all aspects of botanical art. Here is a peek at the 2012-2013 schedule:
Summer 2013 Classes
Don’t miss these summer classes with visiting artist, Susan T. Fisher!
Optimizing Colors in Botanical Paintings
Tuesday, July 30 – Thursday, August 1, 2013
9:30 AM – 3:30 PM BAC 14 114
You understand how to mix color, now focus on a systematic method for manipulating color to create your vision. How do you optimize color mixtures in your botanical watercolors? Do you use washes or glazes? Do you mix colors on the paper or on the palette? When you need to make adjustments what do you adjust first – value, hue or chroma?
Increase your ability to make good color choices for different painting situations in a series of fun exercises with Susan Fisher. Learn to anticipate drying shifts and how they affect your work. Recognize various lighting aspects and see how they encourage or derail color choices. Focus on the challenging qualities of plant/vegetable specimens to practice color-mixing possibilities. A selection of watercolor exercises will guide students in the skillful use of warm or cool; light or dark; vivid or neutral colors; and related darks in botanical paintings. Although minimal drawing is needed, some watercolor experience mixing colors is required. Cost: WCBG Friends Members $350 / Non-Members $440
To register: email: wcbgfriends@wellesley.edu or call (781) 283-3094
Learn more about Wellesley’s certificate program.
View current schedule
Botanists and illustrators strive to document conifers around the world.
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