Showing 1–12 of 13 results
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The Florilegium: The Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney: Celebrating 200 Years
Artist/Author: Morris, Collen, Louisa Murray, Brett Summerell (Preface By), Shirley Sherwood(Foreword By), Beverly Allen(Introduction By)$49.00 Add to cartA quality production with full-page illustrations of 87 historically significant plants in Sydney’s three botanical gardens. 64 leading botanical artists contributed to this wonderful collection. The majority are Australian with 23 international artists also contributing. Almost all of the artists are represented in the major public and private collections around the world and have been awarded medals. The artists donated their work to the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust to create this contemporary florilegium. A florilegium is a collection of paintings of plants from a particular garden or place. The paintings have been exhibited at the Museum of Sydney in 2016 and in 2018, the exhibition travelled to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: a measure of its quality. 87 plants were chosen for their botanical and historical significance. Most have been painted life size, and then reduced by about half for reproduction in the book. The variety of contemporary styles represent individual artistic responses to the plants, while always retaining botanical accuracy. The foreword is by Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE, the foremost collector of botanical art; with an introductory essay by Beverly Allen, and historic overview by Colleen Morris is followed by text for each plant’s fascinating historic and cultural significance and a botanic description by Louisa Murray. Artist biographies are included. The book is an attractive contemporary design, printed on quality matt art paper (low gloss), allowing accurate reproduction of the colours. Careful quality control through the production process has ensured this. Text is on the left-hand page of each spread, with the artwork generally on the right, sometimes spreading over both pages.
All profits from sales of the book will go towards conservation of books and artwork held at the Gardens. The artists have donated their work to the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust.
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Into the Orchid House: In Search of Beauty
Artist/Author: Breeden, Stanley, Kaisa Breeden and Bruce Gray$45.00 Add to cartHigh on the hills of the Atherton Tablelands in far north Queensland stands a glasshouse built by orchid expert Bruce Gray. Whether from the cloud forests of South America, the Himalayan Mountains of India, the mangroves of the Philippines, the rocky outcrops of Madagascar or the dense rainforests of New Guinea, tropical species thrive here.
Award-winning photographers Stanley and Kaisa Breeden capture the plants in rich, detailed images. Specialising in macro photography using natural light, the Breedens produce masterful floral portraits, exquisite in detail and colour. Step into the orchid house to discover this extraordinary and diverse world.
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Marianne North: The Kew Collection
Artist/Author: RBG Kew$80.00 Add to cartMarianne North was a remarkable Victorian traveller and painter, who traversed the globe recording the world’s flora with her paintbrush and writing her experiences in her journal.
In 1879 she offered her painting collection numbering over 800 to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and at her own expense built a gallery to house them. Marianne stayed closely involved with the project, painting beautiful decorative motifs on the interior door panels and surrounds.
For the first time, this unique and stunning book brings together all of Marianne North’s Kew collection. The paintings are arranged geographically as they appear in the Gallery, and Marianne’s original titles are included alongside each painting.
With an introduction by Christopher Mills, former Head of Kew’s Library, Art and Archives. This is a beautiful gift souvenir in celebration of a stunning body of work.
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Plant: Exploring the Botanical World
Artist/Author: Phaidon Editors$80.00 Add to cartThe ultimate gift for gardeners and art-lovers, featuring 300 of the most beautiful and pioneering botanical images ever.
Following in the footsteps of the international bestseller Map: Exploring the World, this fresh and visually stunning survey celebrates the extraordinary beauty and diversity of plants. It combines photographs and cutting-edge micrograph scans with watercolours, drawings, and prints to bring this universally popular and captivating subject vividly to life. Carefully selected by an international panel of experts and arranged in a uniquely structured sequence to highlight thought-provoking contrasts and similarities, this stunning compilation of botanically themed images includes iconic work by celebrated artists, photographers, scientists, and botanical illustrators, as well as rare and previously unpublished images.
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Botanical Drawing Uusing Graphite and Coloured Pencils
Artist/Author: Vize, Sue.$55.00 Add to cartDrawing with graphite and coloured pencils enables the artist to capture every detail of a plant, and to enjoy, study and celebrate their wonderful forms. Whether the illustration is a striking monotone or vibrant with colour, pencils give you absolute precision. The book, written and illustrated by an award-winning botanical artist, introduces and explains the drawing skills behind the art. Each chapter concentrates on a different aspect of the plant, working upwards from the root system to include the stem, leaves, flowers and fruit. Fungi have also been included due to their close association with plants. With tips and advice throughout, the techniques are supported by step-by-step projects, clear exercises and over 300 colour illustrations.
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Botanical Sketchbooks
Artist/Author: Bynum, Helen and William F. Bynum.$60.00 Add to cartWhile highly finished drawings and paintings feature in histories of botanical art, the preparatory sketches, first impressions and creative thoughts behind them are rarely seen and have often remained hidden and locked away. Botanical Sketchbooks brings these personal and vividly spontaneous records gloriously back into the light. In a series of biographical portraits organized thematically into four sections, the book illuminates a range of intriguing characters, from many different countries and cultures, including Germany, France, Italy, America, Australia, Japan and China. Sketchbooks proper are joined by notebooks, journals, albums, loose pieces of paper, works on vellum, manuscripts, letters, herbarium sheets and marginalia – even one drawing on the back of an envelope. Turning the pages of this book will be an invitation to relive extraordinary experiences, imagine lost worlds, and be immersed in the endeavours, observations and motivations of the makers of such beautiful and enchanting art.
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Brush with Gondwana
Artist/Author: Gooding, Janda.$40.00 Add to cartSeven leading botanical artists are brought together in this beautifully illustrated book. Author Janda Gooding shares the stories behind each artist’s illustrations and reveals a rich and diverse record of Western Australia’s unique flora, fauna and fungi. Illustrations by Margaret Pieroni, Katrina Syme, Philippa Nikulinsky, Pat Dundas, Rica Erickson, Ellen Hickman and Penny Leech.
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Botanical Illustration for Beginners: A Step by Step Guide
Artist/Author: Thurstan, Meriel and Rosie Martin.$45.00 Add to cartOver 50 step-by-step exercises to guide you through the botanical illustration process in simple, easy-to-follow stages.
A unique and exciting approach to botanical illustration, this beginner guide demonstrates everything you need to know about capturing beautiful botanical specimens on paper.
Each exercise guides the reader through a different aspect of botanical illustration, breaking the whole process down into simple, easy-to-follow stages. Whether you are a beginner looking for advice on composition and how to plot out your initial drawings, an experienced artist looking to develop your skills at colour mixing and working with unusual colours, or an old hand looking to capture more challenging and complex textures and shapes, there is something for botanical artists of all levels.
Acclaimed artists Rosie Martin and Meriel thurstan ran the popular botanical painting course at the Eden Project and have filled this fantastically illustrated guide with practical and inspirational worksheets, colour swatches, sketches and stunning finished paintings.
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Cape Arid
Artist/Author: Nikulinsky, Philippa and Alex.$65.00 Add to cartCape Arid National Park is a fascinating and remote area on the far south-eastern coast of Western Australia. Husband-and-wife team Philippa and Alex Nikulinsky travel into isolated outback regions, often staying for months at a time, to paint the Australian bush. Braving howling winds, grit, sleet, 43-degree heat and thousands of flies, the Nikulinskys travel rough sandy tracks to be rewarded by shimmering seas, islands and unique flora and fauna. In this book, they share the privilege of their experiences through finely detailed botanical watercolours, sweeping black-and-white landscapes and an intimate written record of their journeys.
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Botany for the Artist: An Inspirational Guide to Drawing Plants
Artist/Author: Simblet, Sarah.$60.00 Add to cartAn inspirational guide to drawing plants. An intimate understanding of botany will help any artist create vibrant and realistic art. Sarah Simblet’s masterclass provides you with an awareness and appreciation of plants and flowers and shows how to apply that knowledge to your art. Covering every type of plant, from the tiniest mosses and lichens to sumptuous flowers and trees, Sarah shows how to evoke their beauty on your canvas or page. Drawing on the rich history of botanic art and combined with Sarah’s practical drawing classes, over 350 beautiful illustrations and vivid photographs, provide an in-depth look at roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits and explain how to create life-like drawings. For anyone wishing to master the art of drawing plants or for all those passionate about plants and how they are portrayed in art.
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The Tree in Photographs
Artist/Author: Reynaud, Francoise.$36.00 Add to cartVisual artists as well as writers have long extolled the presence of the tree. From the origins of photography to the present day, photographers have considered the tree, with its strong graphic form and evocative power, to be a popular subject. Through the works of artists such as Robert Adams, Eugene Atget, Anne Brigman, William Eggleston, P. H. Emerson, Gustave Le Gray, Eliot Porter, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Carleton Watkins, this book spans the history of photography from the mid-nineteenth to early-twenty-first century to address the image of the tree in its many connotations – as graphic form, symbolic icon, and role model for the beauty of nature. The selection of eighty-one images carefully culled from the J. Paul Getty Museum’s permanent collection of photographs and reproduced in colour presents the tree in various contexts; the single tree; trees in the urban landscape; uses of trees; tree reflections and shadows; and, details, abstractions, and conceptual views of trees as conceived by contemporary artists.
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The Art of Plant Evolution
Artist/Author: Kress, W, John and Shirley Sherwood.$75.00 Add to cartArt meets science in this book that aims to give readers a sense of some contemporary scientific discoveries that are changing our understanding of plant relationships. 136 botanical paintings from the Shirley Sherwood Collection, by 84 artists, cover 50 orders of plants in 118 families, and a total of 133 species, providing a sweeping overview of the evolution of plants on earth.
The paintings display a sampling of the plant world from fungi to daisies, including algae, mosses, ferns, conifers and flowering plants arranged in the most up to date evolutionary sequence, determined by recent DNA analysis. The text places each artist’s observations as displayed in the paintings, in the context of modern plant classification, providing readers with a new understanding of the complex interrelationships between plant species, and enhancing their appreciation of the botanical artist’s ability to portray the delicate beauty of nature.
