Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery - Drawing Botanical History

On August 28-29, I held my first workshop at Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery. This was held to compliment the "Joseph Banks and the flora of the Australian east coast" exhibition. Great venue and it was a full house of 15 participants. Quite a few families this time, including some of my own.

Taking inspiration from the exhibition, everyone headed out into the lovely gallery grounds to choose a drawing specimen. There was loads in flower including the Pink flowering ironbark, Hardenbergia violacea, Kennedia rubicunda, Tallowwood and the Port Jackson Figs and Grevilleas were a hit. One of the ladies also brought in a selection from her obviously amazing garden on Sunday. This included a rather huge Pink flowering gum and a range of hakea and grevillea.

The group was a real blend of plant lovers and artists at various stages of growth. It was a pleasure to introduce them to the inner workings of the plants and watch their worlds open up. Unknowingly one of the group was Gina Cranson, assistant editor of the Weekender magazine in the Herald. Gina decided to write about the workshop and botanical art in her Backyard column this weekend. Looking forward to seeing the finished article. Glad you enjoyed yourself Gina.

The Gallery have asked me back to do another workshop early next year, can't wait.

Murrurundi Workshop - Turning the Pages

Well it's been a year since my last post and what a year it has been. My honours project is finally complete and now back into workshop mode.

The first of many began at Murrurundi, NSW with a really inspiring group called Turning the Pages. They run many art/science based programs up there. I was lucky enough to be teamed up to run this workshop with my friend and uni colleague Trevor Weekes.

The object of the workshop was to create an artwork influenced by artist Maria Sibylla Merian. This meant drawing a combination of plants, insects and birds. The first weekend participants drew their chosen plants, insects and birds in fine detail. Then the second weekend was spent enlarging, composing and creating the final A1 artwork in watercolour and pen and ink.

Some, no actually all of the artworks were amazing. Organiser and artist Hanna Kay is organising an exhibition of the final pieces along with some of Trevor's and my own artwork. This will be held on the 17th November, 2010 at Haydon Hall, Murrurundi.

Can't wait to see them all on display. Thanks to everyone at Turning the Pages for looking after us. They made us feel extremely welcome...what a great community.