"Botanical illustration and flower painting are perhaps two of the most skilled and captivating forms of expression in the history of art and Irish artists have excelled in these fields. The author presents a general survey of the subject from an Irish standpoint, covering the period from 1729 to the end of the twentieth century and defining the styles and techniques of the individual artists. Considerable original research into both public and private collections has led to fascinating new insights into two hundred years of art history in which flower painters and botanical artists. past and present, have made a unique contribution. Throughout the book the author charts the triumphs, the solid achievements, the successes and failures in a series of concise biographies of over seventy artists ranging from the relatively unknown to the widely acclaimed. There is also a chapter on the work of professional and amateur Irish botanical artists working abroad in Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Jamaica and Burma. A short appendix relates how the original botanical drawing is translated into a variety of attractive print forms. There is currently a great revival of interest in botanical illustration and flower painting and this book is the first to chronicle the extensive and important Irish contribution to the two genres. It makes available for the first time to a wider public the work of Irish botanical illustrators and flower painters." --Publisher description.

Presents a collection of botanical paintings along with descriptions of the artists' techniques and backgrounds.

This book presents a cross-section of recent Royal Horticultural Society gold medalists from around the world. The RHS awards its gold medal only to the most outstanding exhibitions, encouraging the international artistic community to perform to the highest standard. The illustrations gathered in these pages demonstrate great attention to detail, masterful color work, and outstanding technical skill.

Botanical Illustration - the complete guide explains the processes and methods behind this beautiful art genre. It highlights the importance of the requisite skills of close observation, accurate drawing and attention to detail. Leigh Ann Gale is a leading botanical artist and tutor, and she generously demonstrates her approach in this book. Her worked example of fuchsia magellanica clearly shows the varied stages of an illustration. Along with step-by-step instructions to a range of subjects, this book is beautifully illustrated with over 350 images, diagrams and paintings of her and her students' work. This book is a source of inspiration as well as a definitive guide, and the contents include: introduction to botany and a comprehensive botanical glossary; a case study demonstrating each stage of a worked example, including the selection and preparation of a subject, observational drawings, composition skills and painting processes; step-by-step instruction covering many subjects, from creating shine on leaves and berries, to painting white flowers and depicting hairs on leaves and stems; a guide to colour theory and how to mix colours accurately to match your specimens and make the most of your watercolour palette; and ideas on how to continue, and develop your own style of botanical illustration. This book will be of great interest to all botanical artists, natural history artists, watercolourists, gardeners and natural historians and is lavishly illustrated with 391 colour images.

The Artist’s Garden offers an intriguing study into 20 gardens that have inspired and been home to some of the greatest painters of history. The most alluring image of an artist at work is surely one where he or she has come out of their studio, set up their easel on the garden path, pulled on a hat to shade their eyes from the sun and taken their brush and palette in hand. This sumptuously illustrated and fascinating book delves into the stories behind the gardens which inspired some of the most beautiful and important works of art. These gardens not only supplied the inspiration for creative works but also illuminate the professional motivation and private life of the artists themselves – from Cezanne’s house in the south of France to Childe Hassam at Celia Thaxter’s garden off the coast off Maine. Flowers and gardens have often been the first choice for artists looking for a subject. A garden close to the artist’s studio is not only convenient for daily material and ideas, but also has the advantage of changing through the seasons and over time. Claude Monet’s Giverny was the catalyst for hundreds of great paintings (by Monet and other artists), each one different from the one before. Sometimes a whole village becomes the focus for a colony of artists as at Gerberoy in Picardy and Skagen on the northernmost tip of Denmark. This book is about the real homes and gardens that inspired these great artists – gardens that can still be visited today. The relationship between artist and garden is a complex one. A few artists, including Pierre Bonnard and his neighbour Monet were keen gardeners, as much in love with their plants as their work, while for others like Sorolla in Madrid, his courtyard home was both a sanctuary and a source of ideas. This book is as unmissable for art lovers as it is for anyone who knows the joy of time spent in gardens, offering an intriguing insight into the lives of these great painters and the gardens which inspired them to their creative heights.

Recording the world of plant and animal life and documenting the strange beauty of the natural world have been human passions ever since the first cave paintings. While there are many histories of botanical art featuring beautiful paintings and finished drawings, the artists' preparatory sketches, first impressions, and scribbled notes on paper are rarely seen. But it is often these early attempts that give us real insight into the firsthand experiences and adventures of the botanists, artists, collectors, and explorers behind them. This exquisite visual compendium of botanical sketches by eighty artists from around the world brings these personal and vividly spontaneous records back into the light. Filled with remarkable images from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, sourced from the unparalleled collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Library, Art & Archives, and other libraries, museums, and archives, Botanical Sketchbooks also provides fascinating biographical portraits of the intriguing characters featured within, including such renowned artists, scientists, and amateur botanists as Leonardo da Vinci, Georg Dionysius Ehret, Carl Linnaeus, Maria Sibylla Merian, Mark Catesby, and Helen and Margaret Shelley (sisters of the novelist Mary Shelley), among many others.

Anna Mason's exceptional floral artwork has won awards from the Royal Horticultural Society, International Artist magazine and seen her elected to the prestigious Society of Botanical Artists. In this book, she shares her innovative watercolour technique so that you can paint flowers in her clean, crisp style. The book covers every aspect of painting modern botanical-style portraits of flowers, from tips on gathering your reference to Anna's six stage watercolour process. There are instructions on setting up your studio and how to produce the detailed drawings. Each of the six step-by-step projects is accompanied by an outline drawing, tonal notes and useful colour swatches so that you can compare the tone and hue of your mixes to Anna's own. This all builds into a fantastic guide that will inspire and challenge the experienced watercolour artist, while drawing in and reassuring the complete beginner.

From the creators of The Art of Botanical Painting, here is the essential guide to achieving perfect color in your paintings The Botanical Palette, published in association with the Society of Botanical Artists, is the first instructional guide to focus entirely on the art of color in botanical painting. Each chapter in the book looks at a specific color, providing expert advice on how to achieve the right color in both painting and colored pencil work. The detailed step-by-step demonstrations reveal exactly how each flower painting is built up, from the initial stages to the finished illustration. pi”The Botanical PaletteIn addition to beautiful botanical paintings throughout, a superb gallery of paintings by members of the Society completes the book and provides additional inspiration. Featured artists include: Valerie Baines, Susan Christopher-Coulson, Brigette Daniel, Paul Fennell, Susan Hillier, Jennifer Jenkins, Barbara McGirr, Vicky Mappin, Susan Martin, Kay Rees-Davies, Margaret Stevens, Ann Swan, Sandra Wall Armitage, Brenda Watts, and Janet Wood.

Flowers by Rosie Sanders is a large-format book that showcases over 80 of her finest flower paintings in exquisite detail. Often compared to the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, Rosie Sanders's botanical paintings lie at the extreme end of botanical art – they exude dynamism and sensuality in every brushstroke and their richness of colour sets her apart from her contemporaries. In this beautifully illustrated book, Rosie exhibits a selection of flowers, from tulips to orchids, roses to irises, anemones to amaryllis, and illuminates them with fascinating and skillful uses of perspective and light. This large-format book showcases her finest paintings in exquisite detail and they are accompanied by excellent and accessible scientific commentary. Also included is an introduction by renowned Swiss botanist Dr. Andreas Honegger. This book is perfect for artists want to get a closer look at a master's brushstrokes, textures and colour in paintings, or readers who are interested in contemporary botanical art. Chapters include: 1. Diversity in the Garden 2. Dark Flowers: the Magic of Night 3. A Fascination of Orchids 4. Lilies in Spring 5. Varieties of Belladonna 6. In Search of the Black Iris.

William T. Cooper was one of the world's most esteemed bird painters. In his paintings, birds nibble at plump red berries, they rest on twisted vines and branches covered with lichen, and they clutch forest fruits and leaves in their claws. These botanical details, the backdrops to his bird portraits, are the subject of this lavishly illustrated book written by his botanist wife, Wendy Cooper. For the bird lover, Bill's lush, full-colour paintings, many from private collections, are reproduced here, alongside Wendy's notes and Bill's diary entries about bird feeding habits. Wendy describes seeing King Parrots in the wet sclerophyll forest and rainforest at their home in Bungwahl, New South Wales, feeding on the juicy black berries of the Narrow-leaved Palm Lily (Cordyline stricta). The parrots were extracting the seeds and dropping the flesh. Over the course of a decade, Bill observed activity around an Umbrella Tree in their garden: 'Watched a female coloured riflebird feeding on the flowers of a Schefflera on the driveway. I'm convinced it was taking nectar as they do on the Thunbergia in the garden. It went from open flower to open flower'. For the nature lover, Wendy has included detailed botanical descriptions of each plant and personal notes about where a particular specimen was found. She takes the reader from rainforest to dry country, from swamps and beach forest to the jungles north of Australia. We learn that Maiden's Blush trees are forest giants with wonderful high-arching plank buttresses; that Bill had to shoot down a small stem from high up in the forest canopy to capture a fruit specimen; and that the tree's scientific name, Sloanea australis, honours physician, naturalist and collector Hans Sloane, whose private collection became the founding collection of the British Museum. Alongside Wendy's description is Bill's sketch of a Maiden's Blush buttress and a finished full-colour acrylic painting of Regent Bowerbirds perched on the tree's branches. For the budding illustrator or artist, Cooper's annotated sketches, studies and paintings of plants, as well as many of his finished bird illustrations, give a unique insight into his artistic process. The Botanical Art of William T. Cooper shows the flora of Australia and beyond in all its messy, imperfect glory. Readers will gain a new appreciation of Bill's works. They will see the thick mossy branches and veiny withered leaves of a Sovereignwood tree (Terminalia sericocarpa) even before the black and red Palm Cockatoos in a double-spread oil painting; note the way a bird clutches and nibbles at a large green gumnut on a Marri tree (Corymbia calophylla) in a colour plate of two Red-capped Parrots. This is a beautiful book to dip into and treasure. For those who purchased An Eye for Nature: The Life and Art of William T. Cooper, this will make an equally valuable addition to your library.