The Art of Botanical Drawing From TimberPress

The Art of Botanical Drawing
by Agathe Ravet-Haevermans 

This gorgeous book came from the city I live in, Portland!  Not everything great about Portland is on TV, and not everything on TV is true!!  This botanicals book about the art of drawing plant-life and painting illustrations with watercolor is by the scientific illustrator at the Natural History Museum in Paris.  It exudes taste, style, know-how, and classic botanical art like something from a museum in Paris - sort of because it is, or the author-artist is, anyway.

I tried my hand at a step-by-step exercise as I do in my video reviews, but this book doesn't have step-by-steps.  Instead, it has color charts, and tips 'paperclipped' to the pages, along with information on how to see botanicals in order to be able to draw them.  I loved the subject matter she chose - a drying rosehip rather than roses, a rope of braided garlic which is so lovely I almost ran and bought garlic, and my fave (which I tried out) the pumpkin blossom - rather than the pumpkin.

The Art of Botanical Drawing: An Introductory Guide

My attempt will be published September 23 - Draw and Paint Pumpkins - Art By the Book Review - The Art of Botanical Drawing and Late Summer Botanicals.

In doing my research for my attempt, I put together a video with royalty-free images, for anyone who'd like to try - and if you get this book, you probably will.  If you live in the Northwest, chances are you have pumpkins growing outdoors, right now, but it won't always be late August, and not everyone lives where pumpkins like to grow, so here is a video with Late Summer Botanicals - just a few - to draw from.  

Botanical Art by the Page

These books look like coffee table books - and they are! But, for any artist who paints flowers and designers who love botanicals, these two books, particularly Mr. Marshall's can really give your creativity an added boost about flower painting.

Not since Georgia O'Keefe has there been a look into history that changed how a modern artist approached a blossom at the end of a stem.  As Ms. O'Keefe's are dreamy and creamy with their painterly expressionism, Alexander Marshall will splash your tired flower painting face with cold water.  Wake up!! He demands as crocuses open, then bloom and fade across the bottom of the page.  You're wilting in the wind!! He tells you as striped tulips bend their heads and then open beyond their prime to practically fall apart at you.  A must read and 5-stars for flower painters.



A Glimpse At Botanical Art

The Amazon Basin in 1956 was just beginning to burst with the stresses it faces today.  Margaret Mee's depiction of the plants she devotedly studied and painted in 400 gouache botanicals, 40 sketchbooks, and 15 diaries exist as the call to preserve their existence.  All politics aside, she painted from her wonder at what she saw on her exhibitions and in creating her books and paintings.  This book is her first, and she has another, Return to the Amazon.  It is a gorgeous coffee table art book, but it carries a message, as well, preservation.

Mr. Marshal's Flower Book - Alexander Marshall and the Royal Collection
Margaret Mee In Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forests: Diaries of an English Artist