Botanical Illustration 2 Day workshop

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Bridget has been a botanical illustrator for over 30 years and has 4 RHS Gold Medals and has selected work in international collections at the RHS and Hunt Institute, with published contributions to The Northern Pomona and RHS Gold Medal Winners. She has been teaching and demonstrating drawing, composition, and watercolour techniques since 2001.

This 2-day workshop will look at the requirements for producing accurate botanical representations of plant material, including analytical drawing, and accurate pigment selection and mixing to enhance your botanical illustration skills.  Combining these techniques with an understanding of good composition is the centuries’ old skill of plant portraiture used from the ancient Greeks, through Medieval manuscripts to Marianne North, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and is still used today.

Tutor Bridget Gillespie

This course is suitable for participants who have some experience in botanical work already. We will be working from live specimens to help with looking at plant structure and growth habit.  In this seasonal exploration we will be discovering the range of pigments and their individual qualities for use in accurate painting of the many hues in the material around us at this time of year.

We will be working in watercolour. Please bring your own selection, but the following list is a tutor guide and contains non-fading pigments useful in plant depiction which often needs colours not found in standard sets. ‘Artist’s Colours’ are usually better quality and try to avoid ready-made greens as we will learn to mix our own.
 
BLUES:          Ultramarine, Cobalt, Cerulean, Indigo (Winsor and Newton Artist’s Colour)
YELLOWS:    Hansa Yellow Medium (Daniel Smith), or Winsor yellow, Cadmium Lemon yellow (Not Nickel Titanate) Cadmium Yellow
REDS:            Scarlet lake, Quinacridone red
PINKS:           Permanent rose, Quinacridone magenta (Winsor and Newton Artist’s Colour)
BROWNS:     Burnt sienna, Raw sienna, Yellow ochre
PAPER:          Up to A2 good quality (ie 140lb) Hot pressed/Not surface watercolour paper, plus sketching and tracing
BOARD:         A2 maximum
BRUSHES:     A selection of sizes from 3 to 7 with good points, sable if possible and round body
PENCILS:       A selection 2H to 2B
SUNDRY:      Sharpener, eraser, water pot, kitchen towel, magnifying glass, tape, wide soft brush