
Enjoying Susan’s workshop June 17th

On 14th June a group of eleven society members met in London to see two exhibitions of art by Cedric Morris. Starting at the Philip Mould Gallery, on Pall Mall, to see the exhibition ‘Beyond the Garden Wall’ this featured paintings of his travels mainly around the Mediterranean, Mexico and England, we also met Philip Mould. Following lunch we travelled by taxi to The Garden Museum, to see the exhibition ‘Artist Plantsman’ which featured his plant portraits. Into taxis again to our restaurant before making our different ways home. Many thanks to Jane Edwards who organised the day.
Susan Christopher-Coulson came to our meeting on 17th June and gave us a fantastic workshop. For all and particularly those not familiar with working with coloured pencil the information that she passed on about the types of pencils and paper she uses and the practical help she gave was first class.
Exhibitions this summer
Our society exhibition in Solihull was a success. We had many favourable comments especially on the high standard of work, congratulations to all who participated.
May 18th is Worldwide Day of Botanical Art. The Association of British Botanical Artists has organised an exhibition at The Peter Scott Gallery, University of Lancaster which is from 18th May to 8th June. More details on their website but if you cannot get to the exhibition you can obtain the catalogue through the web site it has images of all the paintings.
Other events supporting the day: SBA – ‘Linking People to Plants through Botanical Art’ at Artworkers Guild, London (ticket only). Kew – Shirley Sherwood Gallery, meet some of Kew’s botanical artists (?ticket only). Chelsea Physic Garden – Works on view by members of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society
After many years of struggling to find venue the society has an exhibition “A Celebration of Botanical Art” at The Courtyard Gallery, The Core, Solihull Library at Solihull in the West Midlands. (Accessed through Touchwood Centre)
The exhibition is open every day from 18th April until 5th May. There are 60 paintings by 22 members of the society (some are ASBA members), 43% are works in coloured pencil, 36% watercolour and the rest mixed including graphite. All the works are for sale and there are demonstrations on some days. Images of the exhibition are on our Facebook page and in ‘Former Exhibitions’
Thank you to Julia Trickey for the workshop on 15th April about ‘Composition’. as well as those attending the workshop other members were working on their own projects in another room.
‘Using photographic notes’ was the title of Martin’s workshop. We are very grateful to Martin for travelling down from Middlesbrough in snowy conditions, eleven members managed the dreadful road conditions in the West Midlands to attend.
Points from the workshop
Members were then challenged to colour match and paint part of a red bromeliad.
Finally Martin took us through how he used photographs in his painting, in particular showing a painting of Rampion enlarged to many times its size but still in proportion. A thoroughly enjoyable and informative workshop.